Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on June 2010

When a friend asked me recently what my earliest World Cup memory was, my answer came back fast and sure: Italia ’90. It was during that summer that I witnessed two memorable events in quick succession. The first of these was the incredible Roberto Baggio goal against Czechoslovakia that sent Italy through to the last 16. The second was the ensuing leap that saw my father—who is Italian—go from a sitting position to within an inch of the living-room ceiling of my childhood home in southern Italy.

My love of football stems mostly from having grown up in a country where the game has a quasi-religious status. One early influence, however, came all the way from Japan in the form of Captain Tsubasa, an anime first broadcast in many European countries in the early ’80s. It helped raise the football consciousness of a whole generation of boys and girls here in Japan, and contributed significantly to the popularization of the sport.

Football has grown at a phenomenal rate here over the past 25 years. Since the establishment of the J-League in 1993, Japan has co-hosted a World Cup tournament, its national team has qualified for the finals of the last four World Cups—including South Africa—and Japanese players have become a more regular feature in the top tier of many European leagues. I’m sure we would all agree that this is a remarkable achievement for a nation with an 18-year-old professional league.

However, there are still a number of obstacles that are impeding the continued growth of football here. One of these is the lack of publically available, municipal infrastructure—an issue that’s no more evident than here in Tokyo. Of Japan’s 47 prefectures, the metropolis ranks 46th in terms of multi-purpose playing areas, and nine of its 23 wards have no such areas whatsoever.

One man who’s keenly aware of this problem is Sid Lloyd, managing director of Footy Japan. Lloyd has been organizing football tournaments in Tokyo for the past 15 years and is in charge of the Tokyo Metropolis League. “We’ve been managing to play our 300 matches a season by begging and borrowing,” he admits.

Municipal pitches are allocated through a lottery system, which at weekends can see 150 teams competing for as few as 12 two-hour slots. So why aren’t the municipal authorities able to provide their tax-paying residents with the facilities they demand?

I went to speak to Junichi Hagiwara and Hisao Oikawa of the New Japan Sports Federation, an organization committed to promoting sports participation throughout society. The NSJF believe that the general lack of sports infrastructure—a problem which they say isn’t limited to football—is having a negative impact on the country’s international sporting competitiveness, not to mention overall public health.

Illustration by Phil Couzens

Hagiwara explains that the problem can be traced back to the post-war period: “After World War II, the emphasis in Japan was placed primarily on economic growth at the expense of past-time and leisure activities, and to this day there still isn’t a political culture of providing accessible sport for everyone.”

When Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara is asked about the lack of municipal infrastructure, he points to the private sector, implying that its presence automatically solves the problem. Japan’s political class as a whole clearly believes it shouldn’t have to bear sole responsibility for providing sport facilities, preferring instead to leave a good portion of this to market forces.

The problem with this approach is one of affordability. There’s a significant price gap between public and private sports facilities: on average, a private futsal court can cost up to three or four times as much to rent as a municipal one.

It’s paradoxical that the government of a society which places such a high value on group harmony isn’t prepared to take a more active role in the physical—and ultimately mental—wellbeing of its hardworking citizens, by providing them with more affordable, accessible and widespread sporting and recreational facilities.

Oikawa has mixed feelings about the future of football in Japan. “It will continue to grow in popularity,” he says, “but with things as they are, the development of Japanese football will be considerably hindered.” It looks like Captain Tsubasa and I may not live long enough to see Japan lift the World Cup.