This article is part of an introduction to the policies and activities of each Prefectural Football Association which is divided into 12 categories: ‘Seniors’, ‘Class 1’, ‘Class 2’, ‘Class 3’, ‘Class 4’, ‘Kids’, ‘Women’, ‘Futsal’, ‘Beach Soccer’, ‘Referees Committee’, ‘Facilities Committee (Environmental Maintenance)’ and ‘Technical Committee’. We hope you read through this article and become familiar with the various activities held across the country.
This time, we introduce “Class 4” activities.

*This article has been published in “REGIONAL NEWS” in the August issue of JFA news.

Class 4 Activities - Oita Football Association

ANDO Mikio Chairman of Oita Football Association’s Class 4 Committee

Speaking of Class 4 in Oita, we have 123 registered teams in 10 regions. 8-a-side football is now popular nationwide, but we were one of the first associations, if not the first, to start it among the U-11 generation. Since last year, all tournaments we have held are 8-a-side. This year, we started Kokumin Kyosai U-12 Football League throughout the prefecture. Now playing in the league has been added to the eligibility requirements for the Japan U-12 Football Championship, so we are expecting more teams will start playing in the league. Since we now play the league matches regularly and the Championship has been moved to winter, we need to adjust schedules of other local tournaments and events. We want to make prompt adjustments to the schedule while we pay respect to the goal, history and tradition of each event as well as we take care of what our sponsors, local communities and schools need and want.

In addition, we hold three tournaments on our own as a prefectural association, and there as part of our effort to improve coaches including the physical abuse issue, we together with the Technical Committee have the training centre staff organise technical reports and provide those reports to participating coaches on a seeding draw day.

We also make consistent efforts to develop female players and bring them together. U-12 girls players are categorised as Class 4, so we work with the Women’s Committee and Technical Committee and have organised the “OFA Boys (U-10) Girls Football Festival”, and “Counties and Cities Girls Football Championship” since last year. In the “Boys (U-10) Girls Football Festival” teams consist of boys, fourth graders or younger, and U-12 girls. The teams are required to have at least two girls on the field at all times. There are approximately 120 girls players registered for U-12, but many of them had not had many opportunities to play and experience how much fun playing football really is. Last year, ten teams participated and the total of 50 girls played. This year, the second time had 15 teams and 49 girls interacted with each other through playing football. Meanwhile last year “The Counties and Cities Girls Football Festival” was held at two locations, Oita City and Sokki-Kunisaki region, out of 18 areas in the prefecture, but this year we already have requests from Cities of Oita, Beppu, Kunisaki and Hita. We will keep advertising to all areas to have more participation.

Our training centre tries to integrate Class 4 boys and girls together when we let coaches interact with each other and when we have training sessions. Our kids program hold kids festivals, kids leagues, and grass roots festivals based on the plan we made in advance, and try to create opportunities for many kids to enjoy football, for example, by sending our coaches to many locations.

So called Kids and Junior (U-12) ages are very important because that’s when many children meet football for the first time in their life. Our entire staff will collectively keep working hard to provide the best possible environment to as many kids as we can to continue building a good development program.