Kathmandu:The kick off time between Pokhara Thunders and Chitwan FC in the Nepal Super League, a franchise football tournament, was delayed by around 20 minutes owing to work permit documents of Chitwan’s foreign recruit.

Both the teams — Pokhara and Chitwan — had included five overseas players in their starting line up. Pokhara demanded that Chitwan produce work permits of their overseas players.

However, Chitwan failed to produce work permits but they finally won the match 2-0 despite playing with overseas players.

But ANFA’s coordinator to the event Sanjeev Mishra, tournament director in most of the games organised by football governing body, could not be reached for a comment despite multiple efforts by SportsNep.

Pokhara coach Suman Shrestha said that they were forced to play after the NSL organisers threatened them. “We had not started Stephen Binong as he had not acquired a work permit, but we brought him in the second half after the organisers said that protest would not be implemented for work permits. The game is not conducted as per tournament regulations.”

Chitwan coach Nabin Neupane also expressed disappointment for delay in kick off time. “The big tournament seemed like a local game. The provision of work permits should be enforced. There are no tournament regulations in place,” said the former Nepal international. “Whatever happened today was not good because many professional players are playing in the tournament.”