This article is part of an introduction to the policies and activities of each Prefectural Football Association which is 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 through this article and become familiar with the various activities held across the country.
This is the first of four-article series introducing “Kids” activities.

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

Current Status of Fukushima and Our Activities for Kids - Fukushima Football Association

NAKAGAWA Masaki, Vice Chairman of Kids Committee 

The number of football players in Fukushima Prefecture went down after the Tohoku Earthquake, but gradually it has gotten back closer to the level prior to the earthquake. However, the aftereffect of the nuclear crisis is still big enough to slow down that recovery speed.

The National Training Centre’s J-Village is still used as the transportation base for the recovery efforts of the nuclear crisis, but they are working toward to the goal of reopening the J-Village in 2019. The JFA also supported us to build Fukushima Football Centre (Soma Koyo Football Field with three natural-glass pitches and two artificial-glass pitches) in October 2013, so we expect more people to start playing football.

The Kids Committee of the Fukushima Football Association does activities such as dispatching coaches to many locations, organizing Kids Festivals, developing elite level kids and holding training to grow Kids Leaders. In this prefecture, we have five regional headquarters in Kenhoku, Kennan, Aizu, Soso and Iwaki to build better relationships with smaller areas. Speaking particularly of dispatching coaches, after the nuclear crisis, we had a long period when there was a restriction for kids to go and play outside and for us to coach football. It had a big influence on children and media reported that the restriction was preventing children in this prefecture from growing their athletic abilities. Now almost all the restriction has been removed and we work together with the Board of Education to have more and more opportunities to send our coaches to kindergartens, nursery schools and elementary schools. First we want more kids to like playing sports and ball games, then eventually we hope they will like football. That’s our motivation to keep sending coaches. Recently, thanks to the FIFA World Cup and all the supports from coaches, we have an increasing number of participants in our Kids Elite and Kids Festival projects. We are realising kids are growing their interest in football.

In the future we keep doing our currents projects of dispatching coaches and promoting Kids Festivals and working closer with various educational organisations, local communities and the Board of Education with grass-roots football as our fundamental target.

In conclusion, we would like to take this moment to express our sincere appreciation to other prefectural football associations and all the individuals involved in football that have provided us with kind supports after the earthquake.