TASHIMA Kohzo, Japan Football Association (JFA) President
As many of you are aware, March 8th is International Women’s Day established by the United Nations, and at Japan Football Association, we have decided to declare this day as “Women’s Football Day”. Going forward, we will be carrying out a wide range of activities all over Japan on this day to celebrate all women in football, whether as a player, a fan or a participant, and we will be providing opportunities for social engagement and empowerment so that women may continue to rise and shine.
At JFA, we are now working towards establishing a professional women’s football league. In addition, we are ready to witness Nadeshiko Japan’s great performance at the Women's Olympic Football Tournament Tokyo 2020. In 2021, our women’s professional league will be launched, and in 2022, a new category for U-16 girls will be established at the National Sports Festival. As a bidding nation, we are determined to showcase our best football at FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023. As you can see, we will do our best to further develop women’s football in Japan in the next four years in hopes of becoming a global leader in women’s football.
To realise our goals, we need to invest more in grassroots football and make football more accessible so that women can enjoy the game more casually. We also need to increase the number of female coaches and referees, as well as increase female representation in our senior management.
FIFA’s “Women’s Football Strategy” focuses to further leverage the empowerment of women and the societal benefits of football. We will remain committed to serving the game by increasing the level of female participation in football in Japan as well as empowering women with our new professional league.

IMAI Junko, JFA Women's Committee chairperson
I believe that Women’s Football plays an important role in materialising the JFA Ideal, Vision, and Values. Based on our firm intention as declared in “Nadeshiko Vision” to make women’s football a part of everyday life, we are working on promoting grassroots, strengthening national teams, youth development and coach education of women’s game.
From this year we declare March 8th as “Women’s Football Day”, and around that date together with prefectural football associations and related federations, we will initiate various programmes aimed for further development of women’s football. We are also planning to boost the development of women’s game through cooperation with our friends from Asia and all around the world.
At this year’s Women’s Football Day our slogan is “Let’s become the fairest country in the world”. Fair play is one of the most cherished values of Japanese football. We are working step by step to create an environment where both on and off the pitch everyone, regardless of their gender, can have an access to football, can challenge themselves, and can enjoy the game throughout their lives.