Fox Sports football commentator Simon Hill examines Japanese football and what we can learn from it
By football expert Simon Hill
FOX SPORTS
May 31, 2013 1:11PM
The size of the task facing Australia on Tuesday in Saitama cannot be underestimated.
Japan is, without question, Asia's most powerful football nation at present - and yet, it wasn't always thus.
Amazingly, Japan only qualified for its first major tournament in 1988. There, at the Asian Cup in Qatar, they lost all three group games, without even troubling the scorers.
But then, in 1993, came the advent of the J-League, which, this year, celebrates its twenty-year anniversary. It's a competition which has become wildly successful, operating as the engine room behind the inexorable rise of Japanese football. How did they do it? It's a fascinating story, and one that has certain parallels with the A-League.
First, the facts. From a 10-team base in 1993 (like the current A-League), the J-League has expanded to 40 clubs across two divisions. Next year, that will become three, with the addition of J3. Also like the A-League, it had to compete with a long-established competitor, in this case baseball.
After a few early wobbles, the competition found its feet to such an extent, that three of its teams have been club champions of Asia. At national level, with the exception of the "Agony of Doha" in 1993 - when Japan failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup - the Samurai Blue has qualified for every single major tournament since.
Ken Matsushima, founder and owner of the online "Rising Sun News" believes the J-League owes much of its success to those early foundation years, when the planning, organization and management was all put in place.
"The League understood that it would not be wise to challenge baseball as the number one sport. It had a 100-year start, and a corporate run empire with vast resources that could be brought to bear, to fight back." says Matsushima.
"So, the J-League did things in almost the exact opposite way to baseball. The corporate control makes baseball rich and influential, but prevents it from growing. Big companies who make lots of money don't need new teams coming in, competing with them for a share of the pie.
So baseball hasn't increased the number of teams in 50 years - and it never will." adds Matsushima.
The J-League made its clubs fully independent, thus moving away from the old days of the Japan Soccer League, dominated by clubs such as Yomiuri and Mazda. While Mazda remains involved today through its ownership of Sanfrecce Hiroshima, the Yomiuri group sold its stake in Tokyo Verdy in 2009.
Corporate power is limited in any case, by the J-League statutes, which insists the only funds clubs can accept from companies are through "advertising income."
Just as important to the J-League's growth has been the focus on community, and promoting the clubs local identity.
"Pro baseball teams like Yomiuri Giants are nationwide institutions, but J-League clubs are expected to focus exclusively on their local community. That not only goes for building a fan base, but all of the clubs activities.
Each must have an under-18 and under-15 youth program, that accepts players from their home city. Teams almost always select local businesses as their sponsors - and players must put in a certain number of hours community service, or they lose their registration" says Matsushima.
These strong bonds between clubs and communities have created a ripple effect - with other municipalities wanting a J-League club of their own. This is in stark contrast to the A-League's expansion policy, which has been to "place" clubs in certain markets, an approach Matsushima likens to "putting the cart before the horse."
Japan though - it must be said - has many more cities, and many more people, from which to grow clubs than Australia.
Not everything has flowed smoothly for the J-League - Matsushima admits the pace of expansion in the '90s was too quick, and Australian-based journalist, Mike Tuckerman, who lived for many years in Japan, agrees.
"The traumatic merging of the Yokohama Flugels and the Marinos was one of the grubbiest moments in Japanese sports history. Bellmare Hiratsuka too, more or less went to the wall. Yet the fan-backed clubs of Yokohama FC and Shonan Bellmare have ended up being the positive results," Tuckerman says.
And those fans continue to drive the J-League - this year, the average attendance is almost 17,000, with Urawa Red Diamonds' average in excess of 52,000. Little surprise then, that the Diamonds home base in Saitama has been chosen as the venue for the qualifier with the Australians.
Japanese football has a 100-year plan to lift its standards. Already its national men's team is Asian champion, its women world champions. It sells top players like Shinji Kagawa to clubs such as Manchester United.
That's where the J-League has really earned its corn - as the bedrock foundation of a vibrant football culture, spawning unparalleled success.
Let's hope in just over a decade - when it reaches a similar level of maturity - we are saying exactly the same things about our own A-League.
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