History of the J.League

Although football (soccer) has been popular in Japan for over 50 years, the country did not have a professional league prior to 1993. Football has been popular at the high school and university level since the 1920s or 1930s, but at the "shakaijin" (adult) level, it was not a particularly popular support in Japan prior to the mid-1960s. In 1960, however, Japan's national team invited Dettmar Crammer, from Duisburg, West Germany, to come to Japan and coach the national team. The country wanted to make a respectable showing at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, and the team trained intensively from 1960 to 1963. Although the team put on a respectable performance, three years was not enough time to build a team, and Japan dropped out early in the competition. However, the tenacious efforts of Crammer and the national team eventually did pay off, as the team that Cranmer built went on to win a bronze medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Striker Kunishige Kamamoto scored 7 goals at the Mexico Olympics, and thus established himself as one of the "old men" of Japanese football.

Before he left, in 1964, Crammer suggested the establishment of a soccer league to strengthen the sport in Japan. Based on this suggestion, the semi-amateur Japan Soccer League (JSL) was formed, in 1965, with eight teams. This league deserves to be described as "semi-amateur" because, like many sports in Japan, it was supported by corporations as a form of publicity, and the players were company employees whose "real" job kept them busy only a few hours a day. The rest of the time, they were paid to train, practice and play matches. Many large Japanese companies, such as Nissan, Yamaha, Mitsubishi Motors, and Yomiuri Newspapers sponsored teams which went on to become founding members of the J.League.

However, so long as football remained a company-sponsored activity, its fan appeal remained limited. The boom that Japan's bronze-medal performance initiated gradually diminished. In 1987, Kenji Mori, then-chairman of the Japan Soccer League, first floated the idea of a fully-professional football league. In 1988, the JSL set up an action committee to discuss ways to revive interest the sport in Japan, and the following year, the committee recommended the establishment of a professional league. After nearly 2 years of planning, in January 1991, the Japan Football Association (JFA, the official international representative for Japan in FIFA), announced the basic structure of the new professional football league, to be known as the J.League. Under the plan, the top 10 teams in the JSL became founding members of the new JLeague. Other teams would be eligible for promotion based on their performance in the semi-amateur league, which continued to operate, but was renamed the Japan Football League (JFL).

On May 15, 1993, the very first J.League match in history kicked off in front of a crowd of 59,626 at Tokyo's National Stadium. The opening match was played between Verdy Kawasaki (formerly Yomiuri Verdy FC) and Yokohama Marinos (formerly Nissan Motor FC). In its initial year, the league had 10 teams. The strong popularity of the league and excellent grass-roots support for teams that remained in the JFL prompted the league to add teams repidly. The league grew to 12 teams in 1994, 14 teams in 1995, 16 teams in 1996, 17 teams in 1997 and 18 teams in 1998.

Unfortunately, this rate of growth was too rapid to be sustained. By 1998, several teams were in financial difficulty, and attendance was falling. To address the problems created by over-ambitious attempts at growth, the league was forced to restructure at the end of 1998. Under the new structure, the top division (J1) was reduced to 16 teams and a second division was established for those JFL teams whose size and financial backing was enough to make them viable professional teams, but which were not yet strong enough to be candidates for J1 entry. A promotion-relegation system was established, under which the top 2 teams from J2 receive promotion to J1 (assuming they can meet the financial and technical criteria), and the bottom two teams from J1 are relegated. At present, there are 12 teams in J2, but the league will accept new members to a maximum of 16, as lower-level clubs meet the financial and technical criteria for J2 membership.

Below J2, the JFL is still active, and includes semi-professional teams sponsored by companies, local civic groups, educational institutions and so forth. There are 12 teams in the JFL's "premier" division at present, as well as hundreds of club teams in the JFL's affiliated regional leagues. The top two teams in the JFL are eligible for promotion to J2 provided they have been in the premier section of the JFL for at least two years, and can meet the financial and technical criteria for J2.

The league continues to plan for future expansion, especially now that attendances have begun to rebound and interest in the sport is spreading to every corner of Japan. The first step in the continued expansion came in 2005, when two teams from the JFL were added to the J2 and two additional teams (the top two J2 teams) joined the J1. This increased the number of teams in the top division to 18, while the J2 remained at 12 teams. In 2006 the league added another team to the J2, making the number of teams in the J2 13 and the total for both divisions 31.

By 2007 or 2008, a full reorganisation of the league is planned, when the total number of teams in J1 and J2 will theoretically reach 34-36. At that point, the league intends to consider the creation of a third division (J3), made up of any JFL clubs that can meet the necessary financial and organizational criteria. At that point, promotion and relegation will be reorganised so that teams will automatically advance from the J3 and two teams will be relegated from the J2. This plan is still tentative, and for more details on the possible organization of a "J3", please visit our section on the JFL

For a more details on the history and events that took place in the J.League from year to year, including the championship and cup winners, the final league standings, and other important data, click one of the icons below to select the report for a given year.