J. League
The J. League , full name Japan Professional Football League ( Jap. 日本プロサッカーリーグ Nippon Puro Sakka Rīgu ), is a professional Japanese football - League . It was founded in 1992 and replaced the Japan Soccer League as the highest league in Japanese football. In the 1993 season , the first championship was held with ten teams; In 2020, the league comprises a total of 56 clubs with 58 teams, organized in three divisions. The major division J1 League is one of the most successful leagues in Asian football. The current title sponsor of all three divisions is the life insurance group Meiji Yasuda .
history
Before founding
Before the founding of the J. League, the Japan Soccer League, which consisted of pure company amateur teams, was the top division of Japanese football. After the audience was well received during the late 1960s and early 1970s due to the bronze medal of the Japanese national team at the 1968 Olympic Games , public interest declined in the 1980s. In particular, the outdated stadiums combined with the poor performance of the national team during this period contributed to the decline. To counteract this and to raise the general level of Japanese football, the Japanese association decided to establish a professional league.
A total of ten teams acted as founding members in 1992. Eight of them ( ANA Club , JR Furukawa , Matsushita Electric , Mazda , Mitsubishi Motors , Nissan Motors , Toyota Motor and Yomiuri SC ) were taken over from the first division of the Japan Soccer League after the 1991/92 season , plus Sumitomo from the second JSL-Division and Shimizu S-Pulse , which were founded especially for the new professional league. The other clubs of the JSL went on in the also newly founded semi-professional Japan Football League . In order to enable the new members of the J. League to prepare well for the first season in 1993 , a league cup competition was played in the second half of 1992.
Before the start of the season, all company teams changed their names in the style of the American professional leagues NFL , NBA , NHL or MLB with the help of words mostly borrowed from Italian or Spanish in order to "Europeanize" the teams. The first official league game took place on May 15, 1993 in the Tokyo Olympic Stadium between Verdy Kawasaki and the Yokohama Marinos .
1993 to 1998
The first season was a great success, not least thanks to the high media presence. The commitment of veteran stars from the European leagues created additional incentives. The league consequently expanded every year up to 1998 according to its own centenary plan by one or two teams. Unfortunately, the good sporting development could not keep up with the financial situation. After a boom in the first three years, public interest declined rapidly at the beginning of the 1996 season . The result was noticeable financial losses for the formally independent, but still heavily dependent on subsidies from the former sponsoring organizations. In addition, a parallel recession reduced the liquidity of companies, which further exacerbated the financial problems.
The decisive turning point came in 1998 when the Zenekon Satō Kogyō , one of the two sponsors of the Yokohama wing , announced that they could no longer support the club due to the company's economic problems. All Nippon Airways was unable to finance the wing on its own; only a meeting with Nissan , financier of city rivals Yokohama Marinos , led to a resolution of the situation, which ended with the merger of the two teams. This chain of events made it clear to those responsible in the league that something urgently needed to be done to prevent the league from bleeding financially.
1999 to 2012
The year 1999 marks the first turning point in the history of the J. League. There were two changes on the sporting level. First, at the beginning of this season, a Division 2 was played for the first time, in which the clubs of the Japan Football League interested in professional status took part. This increased the number of league members in one fell swoop from 17 (which remained after the merger in Yokohama) to 26 teams, ten of which were integrated into the new division. As a result, an promotion and relegation mechanism was implemented between the two divisions; initially two teams from each division changed the division at the end of a season. Furthermore, it was decided to gradually abolish the previously customary determination of a winner in every game, because previously a game in the event of a tie after 90 minutes was initially decided in case of doubt by extra time with a golden goal or a penalty shoot-out . At the beginning of the 1999 season, the penalty shoot-out was abolished in both divisions and replaced by a "real" tie; the implementation of an extension was then omitted from 2002 in Division 2 and a year later in Division 1.
There were also significant changes at the financial and administrative level. With the aim of rooting the clubs even more firmly than before in their hometowns and their surroundings, the league management made the clubs responsible for promoting football and other sports activities at the local level. This should make the teams interesting for their hometown, their population and locally based companies as sponsors. At the same time, the criteria that were previously necessary for admission to the J. League have been significantly relaxed. With this adjustment the further expansion of the league was secured in the medium term, because now teams from smaller cities could manage the inclusion in Division 2 without having to get over-indebted. As a result, the number of teams continued to grow after a brief stagnation at 28 during the first half of the new decade. At the beginning of the 2005 season, the league management welcomed the 30th member, at the same time Division 1 was increased from sixteen to eighteen clubs.
In early 2006, the league initiated a survey to determine the clubs' general interest in joining. Due to the extremely positive feedback - around 40 to 60 clubs could imagine joining within the next 30 years - a committee was then set up to examine further options for expansion. The choice was between expanding Division 2 to 22 clubs or introducing a third division. Ultimately, the decision in favor of the expansion was made, not least due to the fact that most of the clubs wishing to join were still in the regional leagues of Japan or in the prefecture leagues and thus still two to four leagues under Division 2.
The committee therefore also decided to introduce an extraordinary member system for the 2006 season. Clubs wishing to join could apply to the league for this; However, membership was only awarded to clubs that already met a large part of the economic requirements for promotion to the J2. The decisive criterion for admission to Division 2, however, remained the athletic qualification, as a minimum requirement was a placement among the best four clubs at the end of a season. The first beneficiary of the new system was Ehime FC , followed by ten other clubs until the upper limit of 22 clubs in Division 2 was reached in 2012.
During the entire growth period of Division 2, there were only a few changes in the interlinking with Division 1. Between 2004 and 2008 there were relegation games between the sixteenth in Division 1 and the third in Division 2, and two teams were promoted or relegated directly. After reaching a relay strength of 18 teams in Division 2, the number of directly swapped teams changed from 2009 to three per season. In the 2012 season, the third promoted player from Division 2 was finally determined for the first time after the English model in a playoff of the teams in places 3 to 6.
2013 until today
The system of extraordinary membership turned out to be very effective, so that the J. League faced a new dilemma with reaching the capacity limit of Division 2 at the beginning of the 2012 season. In the meantime, the number of extraordinary members in the Japan Football League had also increased continuously despite an annual rise of one to three teams; most recently in the 2012 season there were ten teams with this status in the field of eighteen clubs. For one season they tried to solve the problem with a promotion and relegation regulation between Division 2 and the JFL, but it quickly became apparent that this could not be a permanent solution.
At the beginning of 2013, the plan was therefore taken up again by a third professional league. Initial planning provided for a relay strength of ten teams, but this was finally expanded to twelve teams in July 2013. In order to be considered for the premiere season, clubs interested in participating either had to already have the status of extraordinary member or had to apply for membership by June 30, 2013. In the latter case, the J. League Council then checked whether the respective club met the requirements for participation. Ultimately, eleven clubs were accepted into the J. League in November 2013 as participants in the division called J3 League; the field of participants was completed with a U-22 selection team that was founded with a view to the 2016 Olympic Games . As with the founding of Division 2 fifteen years earlier, the economic criteria of the J3 League were less strict, which should make it easier for interested clubs to enter.
Since the founding of the J3 League, five more clubs from the Japan Football League have been included. The criteria for admission are still the possession of the extraordinary membership, which is now called the J. League Hundred Year Plan Club , and the achievement of one of the first four places at the end of a JFL season. In the 2020 season, six Centennial Plan clubs will play in the sixteen-team Japan Football League, with three more in the Kanto Regional League and the Tokyo Prefectural League.
societies
Full members
All full members of the J. League in 2020 are listed below.
Former full members
| Name of the club | Prefecture / hometown (s) （home stadium） |
Member from / to |
|---|---|---|
| Yokohama wing |
Kanagawa Prefecture／Yokohama , Nagasaki Prefectures 、Kumamoto、Kagoshima （Mitsuzawa Football Stadium , International Stadium Yokohama , Nagasaki Athletic Stadium , Suizenyi Stadium , Kagoshima Kamoike Stadium） |
1991-1998 |
- Remarks
- ↑ a b c d From 1992 to 1995, the three prefectures were designated as a "special area of activity" of the association and were thus roughly on a par with their home town.
J. League Centennial Plan Clubs
| region | Name of the club | current league | Prefecture / hometown (s) （home stadium） |
Extraordinary member since |
J3 license |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tōhoku | ReinMeer Aomori FC | Japan Football League |
Aomori Prefecture / Aomori （Aoimori Stadium） |
2019 | Yes |
| Iwaki FC | Japan Football League |
Fukushima Prefecture / Iwaki and surrounding area （Iwaki Green Field） |
2020 | No | |
| Kanto | Tochigi City FC | Kantō Regional League Div. 1 |
Tochigi Prefecture / Tochigi （Athletics Stadium in Tochigi City Sports Park） |
2014 | No |
| Vonds Ichihara | Kantō Regional League Div. 1 |
Chiba Prefecture / Ichihara （Ichihara Seaside Stadium） |
2020 | No | |
| Nankatsu SC | Tokyo Prefecture League Div. 1 | Tokyo Prefecture / Katsushika District , Tokyo not yet known |
2020 | No | |
| Tōkai | Veertien Mie | Japan Football League |
Mie / Kuwana and Yokkaichi prefecture （Athletics stadium in Tōin sports park） |
2020 | No |
| Kansai | Nara Club | Japan Football League |
Nara prefecture / Nara and surrounding area （Konoike athletics stadium） |
2013 | Yes |
| Osaka FC | Japan Football League |
Osaka Prefecture / Higashiōsaka （Side Square of the Kintetsu Hanazono Rugby Stadium） |
2020 | No | |
| Kyushu | Tegevajaro Miyazaki | Japan Football League |
Miyazaki / Miyazaki Prefecture （New building in Shintomi -cho, Koyu -gun） |
2019 | No |
Former Centennial Plan Clubs
| Name of the club | Prefecture / hometown (s) （home stadium） |
Status from / to | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| tonan Maebashi |
Gunma Prefecture／Maebashi ( Maebashi Athletic Stadium ) |
2013-2019 | Voluntary return of status |
| Tōkyō Musashino City FC |
Tokyo Prefecture / Musashino （Musashino Athletics Stadium） |
2016-2020 | Voluntary return of status on July 31, 2020 |
Individual evidence
- ↑ Football finds a home in Japan . FIFA.com. December 2, 2005. Retrieved December 12, 2013.
- ↑ When Saturday Comes - How Japan created a successful league . Wsc.co.uk. July 18, 2010. Archived from the original on August 9, 2016. Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 12, 2013.
- ↑ a b 2020 シ ー ズ ン Ｊ３ ク ラ ブ ラ イ セ ン ス 判定 結果 に つ い て （Ｊ３ 入会 を 希望 す る ク ラ ブ）. J. League, September 24, 2019, accessed November 18, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 東京 武 蔵 野 シ テ ィ フ ッ ト ボ ー ル ク ラ ブ 運 営 法人 の 変 更 に つ い て. August 3, 2020, accessed August 3, 2020 (Japanese).
Web links
Official website (Japanese / English)