Happy New Year. First of all, I would like to express my sincere appreciation for supporting me as the newly-appointed and still-inexperienced chairman throughout last year.
Looking back, it was 31 January, eleven months ago, when I was appointed to Chairman of the league. At the press conference of my appointment, I received a question regarding “J.League’s future direction”, and I employed the phrase “Three kinds of fair play” in my answer. That being background of it, at the first executive meeting and board meeting, both held before the opening of the season, I submitted a bill regarding “Efforts to Eliminate Discrimination”.
At the kick-off conference of the new season, in front of all the related parties and media personnel, I said “we would like to welcome new guests to our stadiums.” And at the FUJI XEROX SUPER CUP on the next day, we welcomed the audience of over 40,000 at the National Stadium, which literally gave me goose pimples.
The 2014 season, which started in heavy snow in Kofu and finished again in heavy snow in Niigata, witnessed all the various events.
The “Japanese Only” banner started the discussion among us including a lot of fans and supporters on discrimination. The efforts made by Urawa Reds and other related parties brought wonderful stadium atmosphere back to us again late in the season. Yokohama F. Marinos have made their share of contribution together with their fans and supporters in order to make this Japanese society a better place.
The losses by our national team at the FIFA World Cup Brazil were a shock and at the same time a signal to reform the J.League. Speaking of the details, it led us to compare the time in our matches allowed for a restart with that of the World Cup standard and to study better practices including the FIFA’s Digital Tracking System and Germany’s player development. We focused on “what should be done for the J.League to be successful” and decided to integrate many new elements into our fundamental strategy for 2015.
In addition, we were reminded that having successful J.League requires not only quality performances on the pitch but also outstanding business management. The process for the change of the ratio we use to allocate funds to clubs started at that moment. We had numerous sectional meetings and made a significant first step for the restructuring of the clubs’ business management.
The losses in the AFC Champions League (ACL) made me reconsider my attitude more astonishingly than the losses in the FIFA World Cup Brazil. I asked myself how in the world we can win at the World Cup when we lose in Asia. Then I put winning the ACL trophy as my main goal and everything else around it, and worked hard to adjust our schedules. I will accompany our representing teams to as many away matches as possible to support them. We want to win the trophy again by joining forces of the league, clubs, fans and supporters all together and by all other means possible. Then we will showcase our J.Club to the world which are capable to compete against world’s elites at the FIFA Club World Cup
In terms of our attendance numbers, we slightly increased the average attendance of J1 matches in 2014 from that of the previous year. Considering weather issues such as typhoons hitting our nation and heavy snow, we believe we as the league were able to see some improvement in that standpoint. We will try our best to keep providing highly-entertaining matches to our fans and supporters and give incentives for them to make a visit to our stadiums. The first thing we will do, in February before the season begins, is to provide each club’s attractive information from its new season outlook to camp reviews. We will give a try to our new project as well in cooperation with SKY PerfecTV, our official broadcasting partner.
Lastly, the J.League will attempt a major reform in 2015. We will welcome Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company as our league title partner. Our league matches will introduce a new format where we have two separate stages and the championship series. We believe that enables us to present improved excitement and tense championship-race atmosphere to our fans and supporters. We expect our players to exhibit aggressive performance on their journeys to the championship in a shortened period. Gamba Osaka, last year’s “triple-crown” champions, and newly-promoted Matsumoto Yamaga FC will be two of the can’t-miss clubs. In J2 and J3, the playoffs and promotion-relegation system have been in place for quite some time and the clubs should be able to employ refined strategies for promotions and show thrilling battles.
Lastly, the J.League will attempt a major reform in 2015. We will welcome Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company as our league title partner. Our league matches will introduce a new format where we have two separate stages and the championship series. We believe that enables us to present improved excitement and tense championship-race atmosphere to our fans and supporters. We expect our players to exhibit aggressive performance on their journeys to the championship in a shortened period. Gamba Osaka, last year’s “triple-crown” champions, and newly-promoted Matsumoto Yamaga FC will be two of the can’t-miss clubs. In J2 and J3, the playoffs and promotion-relegation system have been in place for quite some time and the clubs should be able to employ refined strategies for promotions and show thrilling battles.
We are once again determined to manage our league, together with our fans and supporters, to produce fair, aggressive and entertaining football. We hope and would like to say thank you all in advance for your understanding and continuous support in the J.League.
MURAI Mitsuru, J.League Chairman
