more needs to be spent on the national team as former national head coach Kazunori Ohara noted, once players get to the end of school age they often drop out of football completely. 2018 World Cup Qualification In 2015, Bhutan made their first ever attempt to qualify for the FIFA World Cup entering the qualifiers for the 2018 edition. In preparation for their qualifying campaign, and in an attempt to improve the overall standard of football in the country and attract more players, the Bhutan Football Federation offered a monthly salary of Ng 10,000 to all players in the main national squad who are not currently on federation scholarships. In their first ever qualifying match, they faced Sri Lanka in the two-legged Preliminary Round. In the first leg in Colombo, Bhutan produced a shock result, beating their hosts 1–0, with Tshering Dorji scoring the winner in the eighty-fourth minute. This result even drew praise from now-disgraced FIFA president Sepp Blatter who described the result as "a wonderful, historic moment" on Twitter, though Sri Lanka coach Nikola Kavazovic, whilst conceding Bhutan were the better team remained confident that his team would ultimately be victorious. The result was met very positively in Bhutan, with the team featuring heavily in the news. Anticipation ahead of the second leg at Changlimithang ran high, a half-day holiday was declared by the government for students and public sector employees and the gates to the ground were opened four hours prior to kick off. The game started positively for Bhutan as Chencho Gyeltshen, the country's only professional footballer, scored in the sixth minute. However, Sri Lanka equalised before half time through Subash Madushan. A disallowed goal for each side increased the tension as the game progressed but in injury time at the end of the second half Gyeltshen scored his second goal of the match to seal a 3–1 aggregate victory, ensuring they advanced to Round 2 in the AFC qualifying section whilst Sri Lanka were eliminated. In qualifying for the second phase of the competition, Bhutan were guaranteed at least a place in the play-off round for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. For the next stage, Bhutan were drawn in Group C, along with China, Qatar, Hong Kong, and the Maldives, all sides ranked higher than Sri Lanka in the FIFA rankings. Against these much stronger teams, their results were not as successful. In their first