Regional Leagues

Since the turn of the century, however the J.League has moved into a phase of greater stabiolity and maturity. As a result, both the J.League itself and the JFL (whose organization and composition have been changed several times since 1990, mainly in response to changes in the J.League) have begun to examine their relationship to the non-professional football organizations in Japan, with the aim of establishing a more coordinated and unified structure which includes formalized systems of promotion and relegation from one level to the other. As these efforts bear fruit, football organizations in Japan truly are taking on a unified pyramid structure. In the future, we expect that it will become commonplace for teams to move from level to level in this pyramid -- not only upward, but downward as well.

While the top three levels of this pyramid are essentially "new" (having been either created or at least reorganized within the past 15 years), the lower levels have been around for a much longer period of time. While adjustments are made, from time to time, in the number of teams taking part in a given league, or in the number of divisional levels for a particular region, all of the organisations which oversee football competition at this level predate the J.League. Most were formed some time between 1965 -- when the first nationwide league was created (the JSL) -- and the mid-1970s. By around 1975 or 76 a three-level heirarchy of amateur football organizations had been created. At the top was the Japan Soccer League, a nationwide league that drew the top teams from all over the country. Below the JSL were Regional leagues, representing the cream of the crop in a particular geographical region, and below these Regional leagues were Prefectural leagues -- one league for each of Japan's 47 prefectures.

Following the creation of the J.League, the JSL was reconstituted and became the JFL. Since that time the JFL has remained in a state of "creative instability", constantly being reorganised and reconstituted based on the demands and desires of the J.League. However, the Regional and Prefectural leagues remain essentially unchanged (at least organisationally) from what they were back in the 1970s and 1980s. There is a regular system of promotion and relegation between the Prefectural and the Regional level. Depending upon the size and population of a prefecture, there may be several divisions below the Regional level. However, all are administered by the same organisation, and when there is more than one division, the prefecture will have its own regular systems of promotion and relegation between divisions.

Even after the JSL was reorganised into the JFL, and became "semi-detached" from the Regional and Prefectural league structure, a system of promotion and relegation from the Regional level to the JFL level continued. It was irregular, and subject to frequent changes in terms of the rules governing promotion, the number of teams to be promoted, the playoff system used to determine who advanced and who went down, etc. But since around the turn of the century the essential rules and format have remained pretty much the same (albeit with occasional changes to the NUMBER of teams promoted). In 2005, the J.League, JFL and Regional Leagues adopted a more formal relationship, and the J.League began codifying the rules which will govern any future promotions from the (amateur) JFL to the (professional) J.League. Accordingly, the system of promotion and relegation between the JFL and the Regional leagues should also become more stable and regular, though the number of teams advancing to (or relegated from) the JFL will continue to vary depending upon the number of teams (if any) that advance from JFL to J.League.

Because of the changes that have taken place in the football heirarchy above them, there have been changes in the nature of competition at the regional and prefectural level as well. The majority of teams are still either company-sponsored clubs (made up mainly of of employees) or informal teams organized by students, community groups and the like. However, there are also a growing number of teams that have been formed with the deliberate intent of eventually achieving professional status. Though these are still considered "amateur" teams, and are forced to abide by certain restrictions on what sort of "compensation" they can offer their players, in practice they are best described as "quasi-amateur" or "semi-professional". The players cannot make enough money to live on, without having another "real" job, but the rewards are sufficient that teams can often attract higher quality talent, particularly in the case of J.League veterans who are nearing the end of their career and want to exchange a spot on the bench of a J.League club for an opportunity to play regularly and earn loyalty and respect from the Regional team (possibly leading to a paid coaching job, further down the road).

This trend has made the Regional and Prefectural leagues a most interesting, intriguing and colorful part of the Japanese football scene, as well as the most vibrant centre of football development in Japan. To keep you abreast of these developments, the Rising Sun News is introducing coverage of the Regional leagues in close cooperation with Furtho, who operates the remarkably thorough and interesting blog entitled "Japan Non-league Football News" . For more information on the leagues in each region, click on the links in the table below

Regional League	Prefectures Included
Hokkaido League	Hokkaido
Tohoku League	Aomori, Akita, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, Yamagata
Kanto League	Chiba, Gunma, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Saitama, Tochigi, Tokyo, Yamanashi
Tokai League	Aichi, Gifu, Mie, Shizuoka
Hoku-Shinetsu League	Fukui, Ishikawa, Nagano, Niigata, Toyama
Kansai League	Hyogo, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, Shiga, Wakayama
Chugoku League	Hiroshima, Okayama, Shimane, Tottori, Yamaguchi
Shikoku League	Ehime, Kagawa, Kochi, Tokushima
Kyushu League	Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Miyazaki, Nagasaki, Oita, Okinawa, Saga