As we all know, whether a professional team can operate normally is affected by many factors. In this case, the stadium is a key factor. In Asian football, due to the influence of various objective factors, the vast majority of teams do not have their own stadiums. Even in the most widely recognized, most professional Japanese J-League, few teams have their own stadiums. Not long ago, a small team in the lower league, Criacao Shinjuku, has just been promoted to Japan's fourth division JFL, and although they are full of ambition, they will have to face a tricky problem in the future - they can't find the right stadium, and it is not as simple as renting a field.
What is the current status of the J-League teams' stadiums?
At present, in Japan's current three-tier professional leagues (J1, J2, J3), the only team with the club's own operating stadium is Kashiwa Helios. The team's home stadium, Hitachipa, is owned and operated by hitachipa Helios Co., Ltd., which operates the team. In addition, Iwata Joy's home stadium, Yamaha Stadium, is owned and operated by the club's parent company Yamaha Electric, the home stadiums of Kashima Antlers and Gamba Osaka, the Ibaraki Prefectural Kashima Football Stadium and the Kitita City Stadium are all operated by the club's designated managers, but this is not strictly the club has its own home. The vast majority of the rest of the teams rent stadiums to play.
There are three main types of stadiums in Japan: professional soccer fields, combined stadiums, and athletics fields. For example, as we know, Saitama 2002 Stadium, the home of Urawa Red Diamonds, is currently the largest professional football stadium in Japan. Combined use of the stadium, it is subdivided into football, rugby and football, as well as football, baseball and use, the former is the majority. Examples include Mizaki Park Stadium, home of Kobe Victory Ship, and Toyota Stadium, home of Nagoya Whales. In the professional league, there is only one stadium with mixed football and baseball, the Sapporo Dome (below), which is a state-of-the-art stadium that can quickly switch between a football field and a baseball field, and is currently shared by J1's Sapporo Gonzale and Professional Baseball's Japanese Ham Fighters.
We set our sights on the semi-professional JFL and lower regional leagues and prefectural leagues. These teams do not theoretically have their own fixed home stadium, only the concept of a "main venue". For example, a team will play in A, B and C for a season, but most of the games are played in A, then A is the main venue. Special among these is JFL overlord Honda FC, a team that has won the JFL championship five times in the 6 seasons of 2014-2019, has a strong strength in the semi-professional/amateur league, and the team also has its own stadium, the Honda Toda Football Stadium, which is owned and operated by Honda Technical Research Industries, and this team is the football department of this large machinery manufacturing company.
It can be seen that the stadium is a difficult problem for low-level teams, and it is not easy to find a fixed field that can be used to play. Having done so much foreshadowing, let's talk about our protagonist, Criacao Shinjuku.
How do I get a piece of the pie in Tokyo?
The author recently wrote an article - "How did a small team that was born only 12 years ago and aim to be the number one in the world take root in Tokyo?" ", describes the process by which Shinjuku created this team, and what they aspire to achieve in the future. In the promotion play-off on December 18, Shinjuku won 4-0 against FC Kariya and successfully reached the JFL League next season, completing their third promotion in four years, which brought them one step closer to their stage goal of becoming a professional team. But then they have to think about a very tricky problem - the team does not have a fixed home, and there is no fixed home in Tokyo's Shinjuku ward.
Since its inception, the team has been committed to taking root in Shinjuku Ward, the most prosperous area in Tokyo's 23 wards, so the team's founder, Maruyama Kazuyo, has been in constant contact with various local organizations with his partners, and has been involved in the revitalization of the tourism industry and shopping streets after the epidemic in 2020, and signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Shinjuku Ward in November 2020. It can be said that after the painstaking management of the past few years, Shinjuku Creation has become a small popularity in the local area, and the localization is very successful. These specific contents have been described in the author's previous articles. But now that the team has been upgraded to the JFL, since the goal is to become a professional club in the future, the problem of the stadium must be put on the agenda.
In the eligibility of J-League teams, there are very detailed requirements for the stadium, and the specific content is no longer listed. The problem with Shinjuku now is not that they can't find such a venue that meets the requirements of the professional league, but that the team can't find a very suitable venue in Shinjuku that can be used as a fixed home game.
With 23 wards, 26 cities, 5 towns, and 8 villages, Tokyo is a super large metropolitan area. Shinjuku Ward is located in the most prosperous area of Tokyo, which can be described as a small amount of land. At the same time, although there are many clubs in various sports in Tokyo, as one of the two most influential sports (baseball and football), football clubs have a much worse position in Tokyo than baseball.
Tokyo is the only area in the Nippon Professional Baseball (12 teams) where there are two teams, tokyo Yakult Swallows and Yomiuri Giants, occupying meiji jingu Stadium in Shinjuku Ward (above) and Tokyo Dome in Bunkyo District, respectively. But both stadiums are dedicated to baseball, and it is impossible to switch between football and baseball like the Sapporo Dome, and there are many performances on weekdays.
Tokyo currently has three professional teams – FC Tokyo (J1), Tokyo Green (J2), and FC Machida (J2), of which FC Tokyo and Tokyo Green shade are all based on the entire Tokyo Metropolitan Government, while FC Machida is only based on machida city under the jurisdiction of tokyo. The first two are all home to the Aizuna Stadium (above) in Chofu City, in other words, there is currently no professional soccer team in the center of Tokyo.
Therefore, there are still many fans in Japan who have expectations for Shinjuku Creation and hope that they can become the first professional football team in the 23 wards of Tokyo. However, Shinjuku Ward is no better than Machida City, and the available land is very limited. Only the National Arena in the district can be used to host football matches, but it is too extravagant for a low-level team to rent the Olympics' main sports matches.
This season, Shinjuku Has created mainly competed in Ajinosus Nishigaoka and AGF, which are very far from its base camp and are obviously not a long-term solution. As for how this small team that aims to become "world number one" in the future will face this challenge and solve this problem, it will take time to give us the answer. If the team can finally find a very good solution, it may also provide a reference for many Asian teams to develop in the future.
Text/Supine Braces - Yangyuan Zhang