The J-League’s lax attitude towards contracts and transfer negotiations is costing clubs millions, writes Cesare Polenghi.

With the Japanese national team on top of Asia and players moving en masse to European clubs, one might expect everybody involved with Japanese football to be in high spirits nowadays. This is mostly true with one notable exception: J-League clubs.

As Japan prepares to kick off its nineteenth fully professional season, most of the clubs lament financial difficulties and few can afford to reinforce their ranks with prestigious players.

The country’s current economic slump is well-documented, however, the 2010 season featured a more than acceptable turnout on the stands, with an average of about 18,500 in per game in the J-League.

The problems lie elsewhere and have their roots in traditional isolationism and the conservative policies that dominate Japanese affairs in general.

Too many clubs are still run as branches of the companies that own them and their offices are filled by administrators who have no experience whatsoever with football.

One problem is the inadequacy of the J-League’s marketing abroad: notwithstanding the undeniably entertaining football and the glamour that surrounds it in the stands, so far only a bunch of games are televised in Europe.

The shy promotion is just an aspect of an introverted attitude that for example often prevents international journalists from properly covering games in Japan.

Another serious setback is related to poorly designed contracts for players and the resulting ‘Zero Yen Transfers.’

Since the early 90s the J.League has mocked the contractual approach of Japanese professional baseball, in which players are usually signed on one-year contracts and expected to pledge eternal devotion to their club.

The system has worked for more than fifteen years, mostly because a gentlemen’s agreement among Japanese clubs made it impossible for players to be poached or lured away by better domestic offers.

It worked just fine when the average level of the Japanese game was still well below European standard and transfers abroad of Japanese players were relatively rare.

Alas, things have radically changed in the last couple of years, with Keisuke Honda, Makoto Hasebe, Shinji Kagawa and Yuto Nagatomo all moving abroad.

With Japanese football coming of age in South Africa, European clubs have realized that J-Leaguers are more than just exotic gimmicks to be used mostly to add diversity and sell replica jerseys.

Besides doing their part on the pitch, Japanese players bring enthusiasm and work ethic that is irresistable to fans – all for very reasonable salaries and at a price that can’t be beaten: Zero Yen.

With the hangover from the triumph in Qatar gone – and with it some more top players from Japan – at long least Japanese media have finally read the writing on the wall and seem now willing to address the problem.

The Sankei Shinbun (‘Industrial and Economic Newspaper’) published on February 2nd an article that laments the incapacity of the Japanese clubs to capitalize financially on the departure of their best players.

The list of those who have left in the last few months is indeed impressive: Akihiro Ienaga (Gamba Osaka to Mallorca), Hajime Hosogai (Urawa Reds to Augsburg, via Kaiserlautern), Tomoaki Makino (Sanfrecce Hiroshima to FC Koln), Michihiro Yasuda (Gamba Osaka to Vitesse Arnhem) and Shinji Okazaki (Shimizu S-Pulse to Stuttgart). all on Zero Yen transfers.

FC Tokyo will probably pocket only less than two of the six million euros (plus extras) that Cesena received from Inter Milan for Nagatomo.

Cerezo Osaka meanwhile received a meagre 350,000 euros for starlet Shinji Kagawa. The young talent is now estimated to cost around 20 million euro, enough to purchase the entire rosters of some J-League clubs.

German clubs in particular have been repeatedly raiding the J-League but how can anybody blame them, considering what Kagawa has done during his first months in the Bundesliga?

So after the players, it is time for the Japanese clubs’ owners and managers to come of age and to begin to work on player contracts with an open mind and an eye on their international competition.

It seems that some already have started. Nagoya Grampus have extended Tulio Tanaka’s contract until 2013, while Gamba Osaka are probably happy to have signed their 18 year-old jewel Takashi Usami for five years, considering how Bayern Munich have been courting him of late.

Source: goal.com

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