Nepal women's national football team

The Nepal women's national football team is controlled by the All Nepal Football Association and represents Nepal in international women's football competitions. The Women's Football Department has been developed to manage the women's football activities. The official motto of women's football in Nepal is "Football for Change". It is a member of the Asian Football Confederation and the South Asian Football Federation and has yet to qualify for the World Cup.

History Formation

Nepal formed a women's national team in the mid-1980s and debuted in the 1986 AFC Women's Championship. During that tournament, Nepal played their first official match against Hong Kong (14 December 1986), which they lost 1–0. The Nepal women's side also participated in the final three phases of the Asian Cup in 1986, 1989 and 1999, never going beyond the group stages. Nepal proved to be in a difficult group with former champions Thailand, alongside Indonesia and Hong Kong, two relatively strong teams. As a result, Nepal had lost all three matches, two of them jarringly, while the match against Hong Kong proved to be a steady profit. In 1989 Nepal played again in the championship, against the same opponents, except that Thailand was substituted against Japan. This resulted in meagre points for Nepal, who lost every game by a wide margin, the smallest being a 0–3 defeat against Hong Kong.

Nepal's FIFA First Vice President was Kamal Thapa. Nepal's first woman captain was Rama Singh. When the Nepali women's football team was created, Kamal Thapa was the president of the All Nepal Football Association. Singh, who represented the Bagmati team, started playing in 1985. The national team's second captain was Kamala Hirachan who also represented the Gandaki team and the third women's team captain was Meera Chaudhary who represented the Naryani team. Singh later became the first newsreader in Nepali television history, and Chaudhary has held a rank of DSP in Nepal police. The first female international goal scorer of Nepal is Pema Dolma Lama, who scored a goal against Uzbekistan at the 1999 AFC Women's Championship held in Philippines.

Crisis years As a result of the democracy uprising in 1990, there was an eight-year period without a women's national team. This negatively affected player recruitment, but nevertheless Nepal soon returned to international football during the Women's Asian Cup in 1999. Despite their return, the results were about the same as before the eight-year hiatus. The championship ended in the group stage with Japan, Thailand, Uzbekistan and the Philippines, where Nepal lost all four games. Since then, Nepal has not appeared in the Women's Asian cup. Former men's national team technical director, Holger Obermann served as the technical advisor for the Chelis during their 1999 campaign.

However, this did not mean that Nepal had not played football since 1999. The Mangladevi League, roughly a month-long women's football tourney, was set up trying to bring in women football players across the country. It was played in early 2000, in a league-cum-knockout format. It was an initiative taken by a single person, but was sadly discontinued after a year.

Nepal had a long period without matches, but they impressed many in the South Asian Games in 2010, where they reached the final after beating several opponents by a wide margin. in. In the final, they lost narrowly 1–3 against the heavy favorite India. This gave the national team much-needed recognition. The 11th South Asian Games were also the first to host a women's football event as well. In the opening match of the 2010 South Asian Games, Nepal's U-23 women's team faced hosts Bangladesh, where they won with a single goal. The second match against Sri Lanka proved to be more illustrious as victory came in the form of 8 goals while holding a clean sheet. However, the scoring spree was short-lived as the third group-stage match against India saw a heavy 0–5 loss. Nevertheless, Nepal had done enough to qualify for the second round (semi-finals) against Pakistan which they won with a resounding 7–0 scoreline. This meant that Nepal would face a difficult rematch against India in the final, although any result would ensure a medal at the very least for the Chelis. Despite finally ending the scoring drought against India, the game was lost 1–3. Despite putting on a valiant performance, the Chelis returned home with a silver medal which came to the delight of many supporters of Nepali football due to the rarity of the occasion.

Regeneration

The regeneration of women's football in Nepal was first realised when after the national leagues were reinstated in 2009. The women's national team prior to this hadn't played an international game for 5 years. Nevertheless, the Chelis began training for two upcoming major international tournaments in the following year. In 2010, Nepali women footballers returned with two runner-up trophies, one from the 11th South Asian Games, and the other from the SAFF Women's Football Championship. Despite limited training, resources and less attention compared to the men's team, the women's team performed exceedingly well. In the South Asian Games, they defeated Sri Lanka 8–0, and in SAFF they thrashed Afghanistan 13–0 and Pakistan 11–0. Striker Anu Lama was the star of SAFF, scoring three hat-tricks to be declared the best player of the tournament. However, the team was defeated 0–5 by India in the SAG final, but it was a much more closely fought match when they lost 0–1 to the same team in the SAFF final recently.

Following the team's 2010 regeneration, the women's side's FIFA ranking rose by 22 places.

Team image

Nicknames The Nepal women's national football team has also been known as the "Nepali Chelis".

Home stadium

The team's home stadium is the Dasarath Rangasala Stadium, a multi-purpose stadium in central Kathmandu. It is shared with the Nepal men's national football team. Holding 25,000 spectators, of which 5,000 seated, the Dasarath Rangasala is the biggest stadium in Nepal. It is named after Dashrath Chand, one of Nepal's martyrs. Prior to the 2013 SAFF Championship in Nepal, the Dasarath Rangasala underwent heavy renovation that saw several improvements such as the expansion of seats from 20,000 to 25,000.

FIFA World Ranking

Nepal's FIFA World Ranking historyYear 20032010201120122013201420152016201720182019202020212022202320242025FIFA World Ranking1031161161089410711410591108979210310310510389AFC Ranking–22232324212420222021162121202015

Results and fixtures

The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled. Legend

2025

2026

Coaching staff As of October 2025 PositionNameHead coach Nabin NeupaneAssistant coach Raj Kumar KC Bhagwati ThapaGoalkeeping coach Suraj Kumar LamaMedical officer Dr. Alisha RaiPhysio Shila GiriKit manager Bikash GurungTeam officialVacantMedia manager Krishna Singh LothyalTeam Manager Bindra Dewan

Coaching history

NamePeriodAchievements Dhruba KC2010–20122010 SAFF Women's Championship: Runner-up2012 SAFF Women's Championship: Runner-up Hari Khadka2018–2019 Gary Phillips As Technical Director2019–2021 Gary Phillips2021–2022 Kumar Thapa2022 Rajendra Tamang2024–20252024 WAFF Women's Championship: Runner-up2024 SAFF Women's Championship: Runner-up2025 International Women's Championship: Runner-up Patrick De Wilde2025 Nabin Neupane2025–present

Players Current squad The following players were called up for the final squad for the 2026 SAFF Women's Championship in May 2026.

Recent call-ups The following footballers were part of a national selection in the past twelve months, but are not part of the current squad.

INJ Withdrew due to injury PRE Preliminary squad / standby RET Retired from the national team SUS Serving suspension WD Player withdrew from the squad due to non-injury issue.

Records

Competitive record FIFA Women's World Cup FIFA Women's World Cup recordQualification recordYearRound 1991Did not enterDid not enter 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023Did not qualifyVia AFC Women's Asian Cup 2027 2031To be determinedTo be determined 2035Total0/10–––––––––––––––

Olympic Games Summer Olympics recordQualification recordYearRound 1996Did not enterDid not enter 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020Did not qualify6132710−3 2024200217−6 2028Via AFC Women's Asian Cup 2032To be determinedTo be determinedTotal0/9–––––––8134717−10

*Denotes draws includes knockout matches decided on penalty kicks.

AFC Women's Asian Cup AFC Women's Asian Cup recordQualification recordYearResult 1975 Did not exist No Qualification 1977 1980 1981 1983 1986 Group stage 3003012−12 1989 Group stage 3003025−25 1991 Did not enter 1993 1995 1997 1999 Group stage 4004130−29 2001 Did not enter 2003 2006 Did not enter 2008 2010 2014 2018 2022 Did not qualify 201112−1 2026 3210203+17 2029To be determined To be determined Total 3/21100010167−665221215+16