The policy and activities of each Prefectural Football Association are introduced for the following 12 themes, “Senior”, “Class 1”, “Class 2”, “Class 3”, “Class 4”, “Kids”, “Women”, “Futsal”, “Beach Soccer”, “Referees Committee”, “Facilities Committee (Environment Project)”, and “Technical Committee”. Please check out the local and regional activities in Japan.
As a second report of Class 3 activities, we are introducing this in Toyama.

*The contributed article below is also posted in the July issue of JFA News in the “Regional News” section.

Class 3 Activities – Toyama Football Association

“Move on to your dream!!” TONOMURA Tetsuo, Executive Committee Member and Class 3 Chairman of Toyama Football Association

There is a total of 76 registered teams of Class 3 in Toyama prefecture, including 55 Junior High School Physical Culture Association teams and 21 club teams. Last year, SQUARE Toyama FC qualified for the top 8 teams in the 25th Prince Takamado Trophy All Japan (U-15) Football Championship and Kataller Toyama U-15 also played very well against Urawa Reds even though they were defeated eventually in the same championship. In the regional championship of Junior High School Physical Culture Association, Hayahoshi Junior High School won the Hokushinetsu Regional Championship for the first time in 16 years, and moved on to the second match of the All Japan Junior High School Sports Festival held in Ogaki, Gifu prefecture.

While players in our prefecture cannot play occasionally in winter season due to snow, our Class 3 Committee collaborated well to suggest some ideas to contribute to players’ development.

U-15 League which we started in 2005 has established more recently after some trial and error. Also, since 1994 every March we have the “Toyama Youth players’ Friendship Festival” with about 170 local teams from Kitashinetsu. (In 2011, we canceled the event because of The Great East Japan Earthquake.) As the 22nd event, this year we had 5-days of friendship matches. It was not straight forward to make a draw of these matches, but this event contributes not only to player’s development, but also to exchanging information amongst trainers. In 2016, All Japan Junior High School Football Championship will be held in Toyama city. We are to improve various football facilities for this Championship. I am more than happy to prepare for this Championship to be successful taking any support from all parts of the Toyama Football Association. (The photo is taken at Nichi-Iko Sports Academy. There are 2 artificial-turf football pitches and many teams come and play there.)

Class 3 Committee’s final aim is to send players from our prefecture to the Japan National Team for a FIFA World Cup. In the past, there are several players who joined in training camps as squad players. The only player who has played in the FIFA World Cup is YABAGISAWA Atsushi, who currently plays for Vegalta Sendai even though there are several professional J.League players from Toyama.

We now have more young trainers. We expect them to be happy to support and train young players. Also, we collaborate with the Technical Committee to enhance training centre activities and we expect our youth players in Toyama prefecture to move on to the world stage.