Why the monthly remuneration for the head of the Japan Football Association was quietly raised to “3 million yen” in spite of a large deficit.

Remuneration for the nine full-time officers of the Japan Football Association (hereinafter referred to as “JFA”) was recently increased substantially. Monthly compensation of 2.5 million yen has increased to 3 million yen. This is about the same amount as that of sumo grand champion Terunofuji. Although the salary of JFA President Kozo Tajima, 65, who is currently the head of the JFA, will not be increased, it was revealed that the annual salary of the person who will assume the presidency will be 36 million yen.

The JFA is suffering a significant decrease in revenue amid the COVID-19 crisis, which has not yet been fully resolved. The JFA announced that its financial results for fiscal 2010 (January 1-December 31) showed a deficit of approximately 4.88 billion yen. This significant deficit is despite the fact that the Japanese national team sold its own building, JFA House (Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo), for more than 10 billion yen last December after a strong performance in defeating Germany and Spain, the past World Cup winners. The increase in executive compensation under such circumstances is a surprise not only within the JFA, but also to other athletic organizations.

The raise is intended to bring in talented people.

In late March, when Japan was still abuzz with excitement over Japan’s WBC victory by the Kuriyama Japan baseball team, the JFA held its annual board of trustees meeting, the decision-making body that decides the future direction of the organization. At the meeting, it was decided that the “remuneration” of full-time directors would be substantially increased.

The decision was made in order to attract more talented people to JFA. (In exchange for the increase in monthly compensation, there will be no severance pay.

Managing Director Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, who was the captain of the Japanese national team at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea and the following World Cup in Germany in 2006, and who became the association’s No. 3 on February 1 of this year, explained.

The JFA has had paid directors since 2002, when Saburo Kawabuchi became president of the JFA, and Kawabuchi, the top director at the time, was also paid an estimated 20 million yen a year. At this annual meeting of the Board of Trustees, the monthly salary was increased by 500,000 yen to 3 million yen, and it was decided to abolish the executive retirement benefit system (retirement allowance) instead.

In addition, the total amount of income from his position as a full-time director of the JFA, which had previously been limited to 200 million yen, including additional income from lectures and other activities in addition to his main job, was raised to 300 million yen or less per year.

However, a local association official said, “This is impossible; the association’s finances are unstable enough to sell the JFA House. At the JFA’s announcement that it posted a deficit of approximately 4.88 billion yen for the fiscal year 2010, Managing Director Miyamoto also revealed that the specified deposit (approximately 4.53 billion yen) for the repair of the JFA House to be sold was reversed and used to cover the deficit. In fact, the deficit is about 350 million yen (not 4.8 billion yen).”

In response to this explanation by Executive Director Miyamoto, the aforementioned local association official said, “From now on, the JFA will not have any more real estate to sell. We are not prepared for the case of another deficit in the next fiscal year. Under such circumstances, an increase in the director’s remuneration is something that would never happen in any other sports organization, let alone in a general corporate organization,” he said with an indignant expression.

The monthly remuneration of 3 million yen is simply converted to an annual salary of 36 million yen. It must be difficult for ordinary salarymen to understand. Compared to other athletic organizations, it is about the same amount as that of the yokozuna (Terunofuji) of the Grand Sumo Tournament. After the “Wakaki fever” of the 1990s, the Japan Sumo Association had many scandals and poor attendance, and there was a period when the association turned a deaf ear to requests for a salary increase from the rikitori, but in November 2006, for the first time in eight years, the association decided to raise the salary of the yokozuna. In November 2006, however, he decided to raise his monthly salary for the first time in eight years.