Chairman's Message
The J. League is now in its landmark twentieth year since its founding in 1991. The outstanding achievements of the national team and ever increasing numbers of clubs around the country
which want to be a part of the J. League show that we are making firm progress towards our founding goals of improving Japanese football, creating community-based sports clubs across the country and generating a rich sporting culture.
The Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11th, 2011 cut short many lives and I wish to express my heartfelt condolences to all who lost loved ones in that disaster and pray that the souls of those who perished may rest in peace.
The J. League had no choice but to suspend its match programme for a month and a half after the disaster. Several J. League clubs, including Vegalta Sendai, Kashima Antlers and Mito Hollyhock, were located within or close to the disaster zone and suffered serious damage to stadium and clubhouse facilities. The J. League raised the Team As One slogan to make its contribution to relief and recovery work. We cooperated through such activities as a charity match on March 29th and through the collection of donations. All 38 J. League clubs, together with their fans and supporters, undertook initiatives in support of the stricken regions. They organised charity matches of their own and the players, too, helped with the appeal for donations both at stadiums and in street collections. The 38 clubs engaged in 866 such projects between them in the first three months or so after the earthquake.
Many clubs and players around the world, too, sent warm messages of support and material assistance, demonstrating once
again how strong are the bonds which unite the football family. I thank you all on behalf of everyone involved in the J. League.
The links which sport forges between people, the passion and emotion, give people the hope and courage to keep on aiming higher even through the worst of times. As a person involved in football myself, for whom sport has been a constant source of strength across the years, it is my own ardent prayer that sport will continue to serve as a firmly rooted part of our culture whatever the times may bring.
At this present milestone, especially, it is vital that we now hold firm to the goals of our predecessors and the J. League again presses forward as a leader of Japanese sport to nurture those founding principles, not as a dream but as fully achievable goals.
The J. League all starts on the pitch and we must continue to raise the level of play. The stadiums are the venues and they have to be improved as the community hubs where people will want to gather.
The J. League clubs must lay and develop invincible foundations as custodians of sporting culture. We must once more carry on
taking up new challenges without being satisfied by what we have achieved so far.
Finally, I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to all partners, fans and supporters for your ardent backing for the J. League. Let us undertake these new challenges together, hand in hand, so that the J. League can become truly world class in every way.
Chairman
Japan Professional Football League
