NEW DELHI: The owner of Delhi Dynamos FC appears to have accepted the fact that the National Capital Region (NCR) is just not working as a footballing catchment area for the Indian Super League franchise.
The franchise, which was initially set up by Sameer Manchanda of DEN Networks when the ISL launched, was in mid-2017 offloaded to Wall Street Investments, represented by the Dr Anil Sharma-led Global Marketing Systems (GMS).
For the record, GMS has been a pioneer in the ship recycling industry as the world’s largest buyer of ships and offshore assets.
Neither Manchanda, nor Dr Sharma’s son Rohan (he is running the club), have been able to “crack the code” on achieving anywhere close to critical mass as far as fan engagement is concerned. And that is certainly not due to lack of trying.
It bears noting that even the people who matter at Football Sports Development Ltd (FSDL), which operates the ISL, have accepted (though not officially) that the Delhi market is an unviable proposition.
While SportzPower had been given to understand that Hyderabad and Ahmedabad were in contention, Times of India reports that it is Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar which is the favoured destination for Delhi Dynamos to start afresh.
The stadium, which has a capacity of 15,000, has hosted ISL games of Jamshedpur FC in 2017 and was also host to the Hero Super Cup, which concluded Sunday.
