Open to investors
© Imago
While the teams of the top European leagues are preparing for the new season in full swing, the J League turns 24 out of 38 in the decisive season phase on matchday. For the time being, however, it is the last year in which the schedule in the Japanese upper house is not set in parallel to those of the great international leagues – rather, Kashiwa Reysol, Vissel Kobe, Gamba Osaka & Co. will no longer play their games between February and December, but will be adapted to the period between August and May. This is only one of many measures with which the league wants to sustainably strengthen its presence, especially in Europe.
The recently reported in the newly created post of European President reports what exactly is behind and what the J League will pursue for plans in the future in terms of transfer policy. Yusuke Akiyama In conversation with the transfer market.
Tottenham Hotspur paid 5.8 million euros last week for the Japanese defense talent Kota Takai to Kawasaki Frontale. The 20-year-old, whose market value in the recent update of the J League increase by almost 2 million euros, became the most expensive Japanese export by the Londoners and replaced in this ranking Shinji Ono (2001 for 5.5 million euros to Feyenoord). Together with Kyogo Furuhashi, who took the path from Vissel Kobe to Celtic Glasgow for 5.4 million euros in the 2021/22 season, Takai and Ono are the only Japanese players who generated a replacement above the 5 million mark. However, the sums paid for Japanese exports could be comparatively higher, such as an opinion that has been spread in Nippon among many football fans and protagonists in the past few years. Quite a few players – Hiroki Ito, Keito Nakamura or Shinji Kagawa are called exemplary – in the past changed to Europe for rather small sums.
This should also be a reason why those responsible for the J League made the decision to promote sustainable internationalization of the brand with various measures and to strengthen the presence of the league in particular in Europe. One of the decision-makers who have filled this idea with life in recent years is Liga President Yoshiku Nonomura, a former professional and at the same time chief of second division club HC Sapporo. In the spring, the league opened branches in London and Europe, from where Akiyama leads the fortunes in a kind of ambassador role.
Ideally, switching from Takai to London could have been a “game-changer” and the starting signal to a new era, explains Akiyama in the TM conversation. It relates to the fact that the larger, more costly transfers from the league have often led to smaller European leagues such as Belgium, Scotland or the Netherlands in recent years.
One goal is to generate more activity in the international transfer market in both directions, not only in Europe, but also in Africa and other continents. In the future, you want to not only hand over players, but also “bring more players from abroad to Japan,” said the official, who does not necessarily think of big names as in earlier times, but also the category of players whose careers stagnate in the mid -20s in European leagues. Most legionaries in the J League are currently by far from Brazil (52), followed by South Korea (15) and Australia (3) as well as Germany and Denmark (2) as the first European nations.
Especially in the early 1990s, some German stars were drawn to the end of their career to Japan (see gallery above), in 2017 Lukas Podolski also went this path. Other top international stars such as the Spanish world champion Andres Iniesta played a few times over longer periods. The former Bundesliga professionals Tolgay Arslan and Svend Brodersen are currently earning their money in Japan.
Networking with the European leagues, clubs and experts is to be boosted by a stronger exchange, which, among other things, will promote the adaptation of the game plan mentioned at the beginning, explains Akiyama. Already this summer, sports directors from J League are looking for the way to Austria, where numerous top European clubs traditionally hold their preparatory training camps. The focus of these visits is above all the establishment of contacts and the exploration of possible partnerships, as they already exist occasionally between German and Japanese clubs. So also that between second division Hannover 96 and FC Mito Hollyhock, from which, for example, the fresh professional contract for left -back Hayate Matsuda recently emerged.
In the coming year, Japanese clubs will also move their summer preparation to Europe, says Akiyama. In addition to the exchange about players, the recruitment of specialists such as trainers and managers as well as a mutual flow of information among experts, for example in the course of new data technologies, can also be recruited.
The European ambassador of the J League prize is currently being worked on a database that supports the coaching search. Examples such as Posetecoglou or Arsène Wenger have shown in the past that successful coaching careers can also develop in Japan. With the former BVB, Eintracht, Hertha and Leverkusen coach Michael Skibbe, a German coach in the Japanese Oberhaus at Sanfreecce Hiroshima has been working for several years. “Japanese football is immense in the fast lane,” he attested in the TM interview at the end of 2023.
The league is still open to investors from abroad or multi-club ownerships such as in the case of the Omiya Ardija club from the city of Saitama, in which 2024 Red Bull started to expand his “football portfolio in a strategically important region”, as RB boss Oliver Mintzlaff explained.
Akiyama has been responsible for all of these measures since spring. The work of the former agent, who himself carried out several top -class transfers to Europe – for example that of Atsuto Uchida and Yuya Osako – has one goal: to underpin the importance of the J League in Asia and to establish a brand, especially in the other parts of the world, especially in Europe.