Delhi Dynamos set to announce move to Odisha

The club is most likely to be renamed following the move.

Indian Super League side Delhi Dynamos are just a step away from shifting their base from the national capital to Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Talks have been going on since the end of the Super Cup 2019 and Khel Now sources have confirmed that an agreement is going to be signed between the club and the state government within a couple of days for next five years.

Adding to the relocation, the club are also looking to change their name which will be directly in relation to their new home city or state. Odisha has seen much football action in the past two years. The Kalinga Stadium has hosted both the editions of the Super Cup and acted as the base of Indian Arrows in the I-League 2018-19.

Upon shifting there, it will be interesting to see if the Arrows and Dynamos will keep on playing from Bhubneshwar or the AIFF youth development team will be moved for the 2019-20 campaign.

The Dynamos have played in Delhi since the inception of the league in 2014, but poor crowd turnout and the high operating costs of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium are believed to be the main reason behind the decision to shift base.

In the last season, they averaged 7,096 fans per game. Although, the number may not seem as bad as they are ahead of FC Pune City (6,759) and Mumbai City FC (4,981), considering the capacity of Balewadi Stadium (10,900) and Mumbai Football Arena (8,000) respectively, Delhi stands nowhere close.

JLN - as it is widely known in the capital - can cater to 60,000 people at once, meaning only 11.8% of seats were full in each game last season. Also, let's not forget, they also recorded the lowest attendance of the season, a mere 3,134 fans.

The move will mean that there will only be two football clubs operating from North India, Minerva Punjab and Real Kashmir, that too in I-League.