The policy and activities of each Prefectural Football Association are introduced for the following 12 themes, “Senior”, “Class 1”, “Class 2”, “Class 3”, “Class 4”, “Kids”, “Women”, “Futsal”, “Beach Soccer”, “Referees Committee”, “Facilities Committee (Environment Project)”, and “Technical Committee”. Please check out the local and regional activities in Japan. We are introducing four stories of activities made by Facilities Committee.

*The contributed article below is also posted in the February 2015 issue of JFA News in the “Regional News” section.

Activities of Facilities Committee - Wakayama Football Association

TANAKA Katsuki, Chairman of Administration Committee
Community-based promotion of facility and environment 

Wakayama Football Association’s Administration Committee takes charge of projects to improve facilities and environment for promoting football locally. One of our prominent facilities is a Football Centre in Kamitonda, Nishimuro which was built by JFA’s grant funding. Since this centre was built in 2010, it is widely recognised as an important local football facility and Nadeshiko Japan has used the centre for their training camp in the past.

Currently, we have seven football facilities, including the mentioned Football Centre, with natural turf and three other facilities with artificial-turf for any football matches in Wakayama. However, this is not enough since we have to make good schedule arrangement with other sports to use these facilities. We have been facing with increasing need to construct more football facilities and improving local environment such as having more natural turf pitches.

Promoting a new Football Centre project
This year, JFA is promoting “JFA-Subsidised Project for Football Facility Improvement” in local areas in Japan. In Wakayama prefecture, the 70th National Sports Festival of Japan will be held and The 15th National Sports Meeting of the Physically Disabled taking place this September. Local people in both public and private sector expect this opportunity to energise their local area and are looking forward to these two events. In this opportunity, we want to promote more understanding and support in building a new Football Centre, introducing positive impact that a Football Centres can bring locally along with some of the positive experiences of other local Football Centre.

Promoting JFA Green Project
Most of our football facilities for official football matches are clay grounds, and improving football facilities is one of our big issues in terms of disseminating, strengthening, and developing football in Wakayama. One of our efforts to improve this condition is promoting “Natural turf planting project”. This project enables the change of clay pitches to natural turf pitches and also promotes more communication amongst local people in planting natural turf and in maintaining the turf.

Maximising our existing football facilities: Holding official matches beyond categories
To make most of what we have, the Administration Committee will suggest holding official matches beyond current categories to other committees who are in charge of them. This will contribute in multiple ways such as cutting down costs, and reducing staff tasks. It is also expected to bring about beneficial changes in creating a new football community by promoting football beyond age, gender and disabilities.

To create a good football environment, we will keep working on improving current football facilities; we believe that this will be contribute to promoting football locally and to energising Wakayama. We hope that each official match will be active for many people even from other prefectures and encourage them to visit our football venues.