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The Way of the Samurai: AFL in Japan

Roar Guru
4th November, 2013
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Roar Guru
4th November, 2013
17
1244 Reads

Australian football in Japan has undergone some evolutionary changes in its short history.

The sport faces an uphill battle against a rising tide of baseball, soccer and even rugby in its attempts to capture the hearts and minds of the Japanese culture.

There are further difficulties for AFL in making inroads into the country.

Most players will only last a year or two before finding that they simply don’t have the time to play sport as work gradually takes over their lives after they finish university.

He also says that for the most part, players of a reasonable size end up playing baseball. Both of these things make it difficult to develop good players.

In 2004, World Footy News reported that there were two leagues, 12 teams and 305 registered Australian football players in Japan with 83% of those being of Japanese origin.

Today, Japan coach Brett Snowden tells me that there are about 120 players in eight teams, with roughly the same percentage of Japanese players.

In 2004, the game in Japan was run by two bodies, the JAFA, (later JAFL and then AFL Japan) and the Nippon AFL, which wikipedia says went dormant in 2008.

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In 2013, there is only AFL Japan.

Matches are played under a nine-a-side format with games played every three weeks, except for a break in August.

All teams play each other once during the season.

Snowden’s path to the national coaching role is intriguing. He played senior footy for South Mandurah in the Peel League.

When he moved to Japan there wasn’t an official league and he ended up with the Osaka Dingoes playing irregular matches before returning to Australia.

When he returned seven years later he spent a further two years with the Dingoes while living in Tokyo, until in 2013 when a friend said that he was starting a new team in Tokyo (The Tokyo Bay Suns).

Snowden began helping out then National coach Jonathan Cooper before taking over in 2013 after Cooper had to step down due to the travel and lack of funding.

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Despite attending all four international cups, Japan has had little in the way of fortune with its best result being an eighth in 2008.

Brett says that the Samurai side is better than it appears at the cup, but players and even coaches are finding it hard to get time off to due to pressure from employers not to take lots of time off at once (the Cup is a three week tournament).

Despite the poor performances of the past, Snowden is bullish about his teams prospects at the international cup.

He also says that he dreads the number of good players that can’t make it due to work pressures.

For all that, he says its not a holiday and they are coming over to try to win. The Samurai are aiming for top ten in 2014.

Like most sides coming to the cup, the players fund their own way.

Snowden says that Japanese companies just aren’t interested in sponsoring Australian football with their preferences being baseball, football and rugby union.

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As Snowden says, he can’t understand why, with all the funds the game generates in Australia, that AFL HQ can’t send even a few thousand to each international team to help defray the costs of attending.

Snowden’s vision for the future is all about expansion setting up more teams and more games. More money from AFL headquarters and a full sized ground would be ideal.

As far as Brett can tell, administration issues at the AFL Japan level caused a lack of funding from AFL HQ this season.

Brett says that more international matches and the subsequent experience from them is the key to development for the future.

To that end, he’s hopeful of Japan becoming involved in the new East Asian League.

If you’d like to get involved with Australian football in Japan please visit their website.

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