Fresh from winning the AFC Women’s Asian Cup for the third time in the last four editions, Japan are looking to capitalise on their success and use the momentum generated from their success in Australia to grow the profile of women’s football in the country.
Having defeated Australia 1-0 in a thrilling final in front of a record crowd of almost 75,000 at Stadium Australia on Saturday night, Japan cemented their place at the top of the women’s game in Asia.
As well as being the continental champions at senior level, alongside DPR Korea they have dominated at youth level as well, while their clubs have been among the strongest in both the AFC Women’s Champions League, and its predecessor, the AFC Women’s Club Championship.
But with interest in their success diminished back in Japan, Japan Football Association president Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, wants to strike while the iron is hot to boost the profile of women’s football and he has his eyes on a major prize to help turbocharge that interest.
When asked by The Asian Game if, having seen the success of Australia’s hosting of the tournament, Japan would be interested in hosting a major tournament of their own, he confirmed that was very much in his thinking.
“I hope so,” the former Gamba Osaka and national team defender said.
“In 2039 we’d like to have the FIFA Women’s World Cup (in Japan). It’s a long way to go still, but our aim is to have a Women’s World Cup in Japan.”
While still a long way away, as acknowledged by Miyamoto himself, the ground work for such a campaign needs to begin now and success on the pitch is a major component of that; proving that the nation has credentials in women’s football, which the Nadeshiko have long since established.
But so is demonstrable support off it, as well. And to that end, there is still work to be done, as Miyamoto admitted.
“We have to increase the fan base of Japanese women’s football,” Miyamoto, JFA president since 2024, told a small group of reporters, which included The Asian Game, in the aftermath of Saturday’s final.
“Players are now getting better and better, so we have to see the balance between development and promotion.”
The advent of the nation’s first professional women’s league in 2021, named the WE League (‘WE’ for women’s empowerment), was a step in the right direction and despite having a significantly lower profile compared to other leagues around the world, there are green shoots of success over the past 18 months that suggest it will cement itself as not only a talent factory, like its men’s equivalent, but also the premier women’s league in Asia.
A report in the Japan Times last year outlined some of the progress that had been made since J. League chairman, Yoshikazu Nonomura, took over the running of the league back in 2024, promising greater alignment between the two leagues.
“Compared to the rest of the world there are areas where we are lagging behind, such as game intensity,” he said.
“But, with time, I am confident we can deliver a style of women’s soccer unique to Japan.”
Launching during COVID, admittedly, made the challenge significantly harder and right from the outset the budget for the league was slashed to one-third of its size, which made the challenge of promoting the league impossibly difficult.
With an initial ambitious target of an average of 5000 fans per game, which would’ve placed the league on par with England’s WSL at the time, the final figure came in at a little over 1500, which it stayed around for the opening few seasons.
Last year, however, saw this increase on the back of some incredible crowd figures across the league.
Sanfrecce Regina Hiroshima smashed the single match attendance record when 20,156 turned up to the new Edion Peace Wing Stadium for their clash with Urawa Reds, while the overall match attendance record was broken when JEF United got 26,605 in the house against Omiya Ardija Ventus at the National Stadium as part of a bumper J2/WE League double header during the Golden Week holidays.
While that figure might’ve been skewed by the huge crowd that was also attending the J2 blockbuster later in the afternoon, it was still an occasion worth celebrating all the same.
Overall attendance grew to 337,290, up from 271,878 the season prior, which increased the average from 1668 fans to 2044, with four of the league’s five highest attended matches in its young history taking place in the past season.
Comparatively, using data from The Rise of Women’s Football’s Spectator Analysis from the 2023-24 season, that cumulative and average attendance would place it just behind the Freun-Bundesliga, as well as the WSL and NWSL, but ahead of leagues in France and Spain, which gives it a solid platform for growth.
“We hope (this season) will be one in which we can continue to convey the appeal of the WE League and women’s soccer to the wider soccer family here in Japan,” Nonomura said.
While there are no evident signs of any sizeable growth this season, already there are changes afoot that could have an impact moving forward.
With Red Bull having assumed full control of J2 outfit Omiya Ardija, the women’s team this season also assumed the ‘RB Omiya Ardija’ branding (changing from Omiya Ardija Ventus).
With an ambition of reaching the summit of Japanese football, that evidently includes their women’s team too, as Philipp Wunderlich, the commercial director of Red Bull Soccer Japan, told the Japan Times last year.
“I don’t really differentiate between men’s, women’s, academy, academy women’s,” he said.
“For us, it’s one club. And when we improve our infrastructure in the academy and improve our infrastructure in the clubhouse, that’s exactly the same facilities that (the) women can and should use.”
Just last month, meanwhile, the club broke their attendance record when 4049 turned up for their clash with Cerezo Osaka Ladies, hinting at progress being made across the league, with Albirex Niigata (7311), AC Nagano Parceiro (4264) and Tokyo Verdy Beleza (3534) all breaking their own attendance records in the past six months
Further, there was news last month that FC Tokyo had entered into a partnership with Sfida Setagaya FC, which will be rebranded as ‘FC Tokyo Sfida’ from next year, with a view to winning promotion into the WE League and becoming “… the overwhelmingly top club in Tokyo for both men and women.”
Increasing the size and scale of the league, especially with the involvement of more J. League clubs, is important not only for player development, offering more professional opportunities to more players, and more importantly more games, it also helps increase the commercial possibilities with increased revenue from sponsorships and broadcasting.
For now, that all remains a work in progress, but it appears the success of the Women’s Asian Cup in Australia has opened eyes as to the potential opportunities that exist in women’s football.
“It was a tournament that left me with a strong sense that we must draw inspiration from our discussions with Australian officials to revitalise women’s football in Japan,” Norio Sasaki, who was coach when Japan won the Women’s World Cup in 2011, and is now chair of the JFA’s Women’s Football Committee, said at a press conference in Japan this week.
It’s a point also made by Nielsen, who was aghast that his team’s achievements weren’t broadcast to a larger audience on national television, rather than consigned to a streaming service.
“You know, in Japan, this match and the matches here were not even on national TV,” the Greenlander said.
“They couldn’t even do that. And that’s not normal for me, that the major tournaments are not transmitted (on national television).”
It shows how far there still is to go, but with the Women’s World Cup in 2039 acting as their north star, the time for change in Japanese women’s football, it would appear, is upon us.
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