Given that international competition had been taking place since 1872, Bhutan's official entry into the international arena was comparatively late, playing their first match only in 1982, a 3–1 loss to Nepal in the 1982 ANFA Cup. However, other sources also indicate that a team representing Bhutan travelled to Nepal eight years earlier and won a tournament known as the Shripanch Mahendra Gold Cup, though it is not clear the extent to which this was a true international tournament or whether they were competing against club teams. They also played a representative team from China's Kunming Army Unit in the competition, also losing 3–1. Unfortunately, the scorers for Bhutan are not recorded, so it is unknown who scored Bhutan's first international goal. Bhutan's involvement in the ANFA Cup came some seven years before the inauguration of their own league competition. Again however, sources are contradictory with some indicating that a tournament that at least shared the name "A-League" was established in Thimphu sometime around the beginning of the 1980s.