Bhubaneswar: The state sports and youth services department is trying to bring regular football at Kalinga Stadium here with an eye on hosting national and international tournaments in the future.

The department has urged the All India Football Federation to include the stadium as one of the regular venues citing its successful hosting of the Hero Super Cup and one match in the Indian Super League.

Department secretary Vishal Dev wrote to the federation president, expressing the state government's desire to host more national and international tournaments at the stadium in the future.

"I thank you for giving us the opportunity to host the Hero Super Cup football tournament 2018 at Kalinga Stadium. The event was successfully organised and was appreciated by all concerned. Kalinga Stadium, Bhubaneswar, also hosted an ISL (Indian Super League) match between Jamshedpur FC and Bangalore FC," he wrote.

He mentioned that the government was looking forward to hosting more such events. "I would request to include Kalinga Stadium as a regular venue for national and international tournaments in future. I would like to assure all support from the government," Dev wrote.

The stadium was also used to host the Asian Athletics Championship and the Men's Hockey World League last year apart from being the venue for several badminton tournaments. This year, it will host the Men's Hockey World Cup.

"We have the opportunity to host the Men's Hockey World Cup later this year. We will also host a rugby tournament next January. We have hosted a variety of tournaments and want to remain the sports capital," said a sports department official.

He said despite their being no communication from the football federation, they were optimistic about a positive answer. "The super cup was a successful event that was telecast across the country. We proved our worth," he said.