President's Cup: Three Star Club extended its contract with Sierra Leonean forward Adewumi Femi

Kathmandu: As part of its preparations for the AFC President´s Cup Group A qualifiers, Laxmi Bank Three Star Club has extended its contract with the Sierra Leonean forward Adewumi Femi, thus its filling quota of two foreign players. Earlier, Three Star had signed up Friends Club Ivorian forward Leonce Dodoz.

As per the President´s Cup tournament guidelines set by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), a club could register only two non citizens or foreigner players for the tournament. "Femi and Dodoz will fulfill the quota of foreigner player in the President´s Cup," said Sanjiv Silpakar, the general secretary of Three Star Club who declined to disclose the salary of players.

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Along with Femi, Three Star has registered five more players at ANFA for the new season by Thursday bringing the number of registered players to 20. The five players -- goalkeeper Kiran Chemjong, midfielders Yogesh Gurung and Bishnu Gurung, and defenders Rabi Thapa and Bijay Dhimal -- had played for Three Star on its way to the league title last month. 

Three Star had already registered 14 players by Tuesday including Jagjeet Shrestha, Prakash Budathoki, Nirajan Khadka and Dodoz, who were with Friends Club in the last edition of the league, Sabindra Shrestha from MMC and Saroj Dahal from Madhyapur Youth Association. Similarly, Santosh Sahukhala, Biraj Maharjan, Adatiya Chaudhary, Anil Gurung, Bikram Lama, Sandip Rai, Alan Neupane and Sanjiv Shrestha are other players who have already extended their contract with Three Star. 

"We have already started the registration process for President´s Cup via ANFA and have included Dodoz and Femi among other players," said Silpakar. 

Disclosing the reason for choosing Adewumi Femi who netted seven goals for Three Star in the league, Silpakar said, "We have already signed Nepali players for all other positions. We have only two proper forwards -- Santosh Sahukhala and Dodoz -- and in case of any problem with them during the President´s Cup we don´t have sound replacement. So we have picked him as an alternative. Besides, we also wished to fulfill foreign player´s quota." 

The President´s Cup is participated by the league champions of third tier football nations affiliated to AFC. Three Star has started the preparations for group A qualifiers of the AFC President´s Cup from Wednesday. Top two teams out of four team group will qualify for the final rounds of the tournament. The group matches will be held from May 7 to 11 at the Dasharath Stadium, Kathmandu.