This article is part of an introduction to the policies and activities of each prefectural football association divided into 12 categories: ‘Seniors’, ‘Class 1’, ‘Class 2’, ‘Class 3’, ‘Class 4’, ‘Kids’, ‘Women’, ‘Futsal’, ‘Beach Soccer’, ‘Referees Committee’, ‘Facilities Committee (Environmental Maintenance)’ and ‘Technical Committee’. We hope you read this article through and become familiar with the various activities held across the country.
This time is the first of four-article series to introduce activities related to “Class 2”.

*This article has been published in ‘REGIONAL NEWS’ in the June issue of JFA news.

Activities of Class 2 – Hokkaido Football Association

ARA Shinobu – Chairman of Class 2 Committee, Hokkaido Football Association

Establishing five areas in Hokkaido 

Our goal at the Hokkaido Football Association Class 2 Committee is to keep up with Class 2 activities in other parts of the country. One of the major activities is “establishing league culture”. This is the eleventh year since Prince Takamado Trophy U-18 Football League got started, but we always face a difficulty as we live in this cold and snowing region of the country. Three years ago, we changed our top league into two-season system where eight teams play the total of 14 weeks. Accordingly we changed lower divisions into two-season system as well, and we have eight to ten teams in each division.

We can play outside only in six months a year, April to September, because we have to exclude our snowing season which is from late October to late March. In that period, we have to organise qualifiers for the Inter-High School Championship and the All Japan High School Soccer Tournament, and it will be extremely difficult to add league matches into that schedule. Furthermore, Hokkaido is much larger than other prefectures. If you go from the north end to the south end, that is as far as going from Osaka to Kyoto. Traveling that distance by car takes thirteen hours even when you keep running without a stop. We also have multiple cities which have a larger geographical size than some of other prefectures. So taking all these factors into consideration, managing everything as one region is very difficult.

So we decided to look at it from a different perspective and divided Hokkaido into 5 areas (Sapporo, Douou, Douhoku, Dounan, Doutou). We see every one of those areas as one region and have all the activities based on that. Hokkaido has the total of 15 regional associations, and establishing five areas was made possible by all the associations collaborating nicely. From now on, we will try to make this system more familiar, actively hold training centre activities in each area, and have players and coaches of each area compete against each other to bring up the skill level and strategic level all together. Having better lower divisions pushes up the level of the Prince League Hokkaido, which is the top league in Hokkaido, and we will be able to send more teams to the Prince Takamado Trophy U-18 Football League Premier League EAST. We are trying to improve collectively. Our ultimate goal is to have one team from each area which is capable of competing in the Premier League.

Also we are actively promoting projects among referees in the youth category, because having better referees is essential to improve players. At the same time we will work on educating coaches in the category as well, and will try to make football in Hokkaido better.