Japan wants to host the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2031 to ignite the domestic game and cut the gap on Europe and North America, the country’s soccer chief told reporters on Monday.
In 2011 Japan won the competition, but they have since been overtaken, with women’s soccer booming in Europe in the past few years.
“We would like to raise the value of women’s football here,” Japan Football Association president Tsuneyasu Miyamoto said in an interview at the association’s headquarters in Tokyo, in front of a giant photograph of Japan’s World Cup-winning team.
Photo: AFP
Miyamoto was captain of the Japan men’s team when they cohosted the World Cup with South Korea in 2002, a tournament that helped spark huge interest in soccer among the Japanese public.
Now 47, he took over as head of the association this year and has similar hopes for the 2031 Women’s World Cup. The country has never hosted the event.
However, Japan is likely to face stiff competition for hosting rights, with a joint bid from the US and Mexico expected. England and China are also reportedly interested.
“We have the WE League, and it has been struggling to gather an audience,” Miyamoto said. “We would like to increase the number of women players here.”
The professional women’s WE League launched in 2021, but it has failed to attract anything like the attendances and revenue enjoyed by women’s leagues in Europe and the US.
Japan’s women have not gone beyond the quarter-finals at a world cup since they lost to the US in the 2015 final.
Miyamoto said that Japan “could have done better” to capitalize on the 2011 triumph, which triggered massive interest in women’s soccer before it quickly fizzled out.
The former defender wants Japan to develop a more passionate soccer culture, saying that his stint with Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg “inspired me a lot.”
“They have their own culture, they have football in their daily lives,” he said.
“We haven’t built that kind of community here in Japan. I’d like to make football our culture in Japan,” he added.
Miyamoto played 71 times for his country, captaining the side at the 2002 and 2006 world cups.
He spent most of his career in the domestic J. League, at a time when only a few Japan internationals played for European clubs.
Japanese players are now all over Europe and the national team has benefitted as a result, regularly appearing in the World Cup knockout rounds.
“It’s very normal for them to play in the Champions League,” Miyamoto said of the current generation of players. “When facing big teams like Germany or Spain … they have no fear.”
The steady stream of players to Europe has helped Japan’s national team, but also posed problems for J. League clubs.
Miyamoto said that they need to keep producing talent, but argues that “transfer fees for Japanese players are low compared to players from South America.”
Brighton & Hove Albion paid just ￡2.5 million (US$3.24 million) to sign winger Kaoru Mitoma in 2021, while prolific scorer Kyogo Furuhashi joined Celtic for ￡4.5 million the same year.
“In Europe clubs are very strong, but in Japan clubs are not that strong,” Miyamoto said. “Players who only have six months left on their contract are still playing in official matches. After the season, they will be free to go anywhere, and in that case, clubs can’t get any money.”
Miyamoto wants to bring a new way of thinking to Japanese soccer.
He is a graduate of the FIFA Master sports executive program and also had a stint coaching J. League side Gamba Osaka.
He is the first Japan Football Association president to have played at a World Cup and the youngest since the end of World War II.
“Former players, especially players who played at a high level, know how the football world works,” Miyamoto said. “Forty-seven is not young as a person. Talking about leaders of national organizations, maybe 47 is young. Maybe a new generation might be able to bring something new into this world.”
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Manchester City left it late to overcome St. Polten in Vienna. A late strike by Australia’s Mary Fowler gave them a 3-2 victory Chelsea moved to the top of their UEFA Women’s Champions League group with a 3-1 win at Twente on Thursday, while record eight-time winners Lyon saw off Wolfsburg. Sonia Bompastor’s Chelsea, still bidding for a first Champions League title after four semi-final exits and a final defeat since 2018, made it two wins from two in Group B after beating Real Madrid in their opener. The five-time defending English Women’s Super League (WSL) forged ahead early on, thanks to rising star Agnes Beever-Jones’ first goal in the competition. Japanese forward Maika Hamano caught home goalkeeper Olivia Clark off her line from long
Taiwanese swimmer Hsu Wen-erh on Monday finished her solo swim around Manhattan Island to become the first Taiwanese and only the 334th person to finish the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, after abandoning her first attempt in New York on Sunday. “Who says, I’ll come back couldn’t means the next day?” she wrote on Facebook on Monday, after returning to the water to complete New York’s 48.5km 20 Bridges Swim, the final leg of her Triple Crown campaign. Trailed by a kayak flying Taiwan’s national flag, Hsu went on to finish the brutal swim in 9 hours, 5 minutes, to capture
When Kim Ye-ji first tried shooting at age 12 she could not lift the gun. Now, she is the world’s most Internet-famous Olympic shooter, thanks to her steel nerves — and Elon Musk. Kim, 32, won silver in the women’s 10m air pistol at the Paris Olympics this summer and captured the Internet’s attention with her nonchalant cool. However, she said she fell into her sport by accident. When her middle-school teacher asked for volunteers to try shooting, Kim did not raise her hand, but was selected anyway. Despite being too small to hoist the pistol, she was hooked. “I thought it looked
US Mountain West Conference (MWC) Commissioner Gloria Nevarez on Thursday said the forfeitures that volleyball teams are willing to take to avoid playing San Jose State is “not what we celebrate in college athletics” and that she is heartbroken over what has transpired this season surrounding the Spartans and their opponents. Four teams have canceled games against San Jose State: Boise State, Southern Utah, Utah State and Wyoming, with none of the schools explicitly saying why they were forfeiting. A group of Nevada players issued a statement saying they would not take the floor when the Wolf Pack are scheduled to host

source

Post Views: 13