BHUBANESWAR: Rohan Sharma, director of freshly minted Indian Super League franchise Odisha FC, has offered details of what the five-year agreement Delhi Soccer Private Limited, parent company of OFC (ertswhile Delhi Dynamos), signed with the Sports and Youth Services Department of the Odisha government, entails in an interview to The Hindu.
The agreement sees the government provide the Kalinga Stadium and training pitches free of cost, while it will also help with lodging facilities for the club’s youth team.
Sharma told The Hindu: “Bhubaneswar is a smaller area (than Delhi) and we can do more and pack more in a smaller area. I want to make sure that this club feels like an Odia club, that’s why I didn’t want it to have a western name. I am very admirable of how FC Goa made itself a Goan club and I want to do the same. I want to make this feel like an Odia club so that no matter if you’re a driver or a miner or a student, you feel like this is your club. I don’t want it to seem like a gimmick. Now that we are here, we’re here, and we are not going back.”
Alluding to how the state had embraced hockey, Sharma said: “The State’s logo has a hockey stick and a football. I now want to do what hockey has done with football. I see everyone talking about hockey here and I want to make them talk about football too. I don’t want to replicate hockey’s success story, I want to make it better. I want people to come to the games no matter where they live. One thing nice about the small area is that I can get deep into the society and make sure the people identify themselves with their club. Everything has to go back to the community here.”
Expounding on the agreement with the Odisha government, Sharma noted: “We’ve signed an agreement that will go on for over five years. They are giving us the stadium and the practice grounds and that makes me happy.
“I was spending insane amounts on stadiums and practice grounds in Delhi and to have that for free now is a huge financial boost for the club. And I can decorate the stadium too! We will be sharing the training the pitch with the Indian Arrows and I am happy that we can share the space with the future football stars of India.”
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