Former national team captain Tsuneyasu Miyamoto to become the next president of the Japan Football Association.

Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, 46, who served as Japan’s national team captain for two consecutive World Cups, will become the new president of the Japan Football Association (JFA) next April. On the other hand, there are also voices from within the JFA who fear that a new administration may be in the offing.

With incumbent president Kozo Tajima (66) stepping down at the end of his term, the JFA was scheduled to hold its first presidential election in eight years in late December. The two candidates who wished to run were Executive Director Miyamoto and Noriaki Suzuki (61), J-League chairman’s special mission officer. To be officially nominated, a candidate must be recommended by at least 16 of the 79 JFA trustees, and since Mr. Suzuki could not be nominated, only Mr. Miyamoto was nominated as a candidate for president-elect.

The nominations by the trustees were by name. The nominations by the trustees were in the form of signatures, so that we could clearly see who had made the nomination. It was truly a “treadmill. I heard that there were almost no trustees who recommended Mr. Suzuki.

Executive Director Miyamoto distributed a manifesto titled “Let’s Open New Doors Together” to all the trustees. At the beginning of the manifesto was an interview with Takeshi Okada, 67, vice president of the JFA. A JFA official who saw the document commented, “It was as if Mr. Okada had been appointed as Miyamoto’s campaign chairman! No one in the JFA would object!

The JFA’s presidential candidate election management committee (election management committee) conducted “physical examinations” of the two candidates who had applied to run for the office.

This physical examination was not conducted in the previous presidential election, but the results were scored in such a way that anyone could see them. Miyamoto’s score was overwhelmingly higher.

The new president Miyamoto is not backed by Dentsu as before…

It goes without saying that the JFA has become such a huge organization with strong assistance from Dentsu. However, after the Tokyo Olympics scandal, it is no longer possible to say that the JFA can continue to rely on Dentsu as it has in the past.

Dentsu is no longer in control of the JFA’s new sponsorship deals and broadcast rights negotiations. The recent failure to televise the Syrian national team’s World Cup second-round Asian qualifying match in Japan is another example of this. Moriyasu Japan is said to be the strongest team of all time, and terrestrial TV stations wanted to broadcast the match, but for the first time since Japan started going to the World Cup, they were unable to broadcast the qualifier. Dentsu is not as powerful as it used to be, and it is no longer an “asset” to the JFA,” said a JFA reporter.

The JFA has just renewed its contract with Dentsu until the year 2001. While the JFA will continue to cooperate with Dentsu, there is talk within the JFA that a new foreign consultant may be brought in.

It is said that ‘Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting’ may be coming in.” The partnership with both the J-League and the JFA is exactly the same approach as Dentsu’s. Deloitte has been working in partnership with both the J-League and the JFA since 2005, promoting international strategies and measures in the IT area, among others. Deloitte-san also has a partnership with FC Imabari, a J3 club started by Vice President Okada.

Of all the previous presidents, the current chairman, Tajima, had the backing of Dentsu. In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, in 2008, the “Yume Field” (Makuhari, Chiba Prefecture), a training facility for the Japanese national team, was constructed at a huge cost of approximately 4.2 billion yen. In addition, the JFA invested hundreds of millions of yen upfront to raise the level of women’s soccer. As a result, the JFA’s wallets quickly became strained, and eventually the organization was forced to sell its own building (JFA House) at a huge cost of nearly 20 billion yen.

For new president Miyamoto, one of his missions is to rebuild the JFA’s finances, and he needs the help of one of the world’s largest consultants.

Deloitte has been a sponsor of Mr. Okada’s activities for a long time,” said Mr. Miyamoto. By promoting Miyamoto, who has no backing, to the position of chairman, there is a good chance that Deloitte-san and the JFA will be able to strengthen their ties at once,” said a former JFA executive.

(A former JFA executive mentioned above). They are increasingly asking the journalists in charge of JFA, “What is going to happen to JFA in the future? The JFA has decided to drastically reduce the number of directors from the current 27 to between 9 and 15 under the Miyamoto administration, and it is possible that this will fall not only on the directors but also on the staff. This may not only fall on the directors, but also on the staff. A former JFA executive revealed, “In the ’00s, the number of directors was 100, but now it has been reduced to 9 to 15.

In the ’00s, we were running the business with a staff of 100. If the number of staff now exceeds 200, that is about 2.5 times the number at that time. I don’t think the work content has increased that much, so I have the impression that the number of staff is too large.

Miyamoto was involved in team management as a coach and manager from ’15 to ’21 after his retirement.’ In May 2009, at the age of 44, he was dismissed as manager of his old club, Gamba Osaka, and shortly after that he received an offer from another J club to manage them. However, in March ’22, 10 months after his dismissal, he became a director of the Japan Football Association. Another JFA reporter revealed.

The JFA was aware of the offer to Mr. Miyamoto, and they intended to respect his decision in the end, but Mr. Miyamoto rejected the offer.

At that point, Mr. Miyamoto decided that he was ready to live as an association man. However, up to this point, he had yet to make any notable achievements as a JFA executive. “Is it safe for Miyamoto, who failed as manager of Gamba Osaka, to become president of the JFA, the top body of Japanese soccer?” There are surprisingly many harsh comments from within the JFA. Not only the JFA staff but also the JFA staff are paying attention to what kind of policies and measures he will take.