Fukushima is already a pro club in J3 and so would be considered one. Any further promotion only depends on league placement and fulfilling J1/J2 requirements as any other club in the league.
They need to get the status before the end of the season, that's the only deadline. On the past experience though, I'd say they will get the status before the season starts, most likely in February.
Urayasu SC now is Briobecca Urayasu. The 2nd team from regional leagues to rebrand and set their target to J3 . Will another team to follow? http://t.co/euZtjFUJCN
Another team is rebranding their team name and aiming for J3 too, this time from Shizuoka Prefecture League. Fujine Club will be Gakunan F Mosuperio for 2015. http://goo.gl/k4gVHT
Yeah and then we are not even discussing Urayasu SC also rebranding. The East Kanto clubs in the regionals are preparing to be deadly this coming season. Vonds Ichihara seems to be the strongest candidate among the these clubs to go into the Pros at the moment. Kagoshimas application to 100 years vision club will 100% be accepted. You can see it in their transfers until now. Most JFL clubs right now released some main players and got one or two profiles in but, how many has Kagoshima brought in? We are talking about a half team without releasing a single of last years starting 11. The team right now looks like a team that could compete for promotion in J3 or bottoms in J2, they wouldnt invest so heavily if they were not sure they could get promoted this year.
Also Keio-BRB a Keio University club are rebranding as LB-BRB Tokyo in a push to go for the Js. I see a potential issue for the regional city clubs as Fukui, Kochi, Matsue, Wakayama, Imabari, Suzuka, Tokyo23 that many University clubs goes after going into J3. Universities has money enough to invest heavily in infrastructure, their players are young etc.Right now 15-20% of the regional league clubs are University related clubs, they can easily sweep over them as Club Dragons did over Fukui last year. I could fear that too many university teams in J3 could shift powerbalance in Japanese football and take player development away from the big clubs.
I just browsed LB-BRB Tokyo, apparently it is a merger of two university clubs; Keio BRB & Todai LB. And found out that BRB is Blue-Red-Blue and LB is Light Blue - well, I thought college kids can be more creative selecting their team name
Yes this seems as a merger between Keio University club and Tokyo University club. Wonder if the plan is to make a grand Tokyo club or just a university club playing J3?
Universities can't play in J3 unless severing school ties and becoming an independent company; the highest status could be JFL.
True however you cant deny the fact that several universities in Japan has anounced that they aim for J3 status. That they need to severe the ties to the universities are just a legal question. Just take Club Dragons as a example. They formally has severed their ties completely from Ryutsu keizai University legally and organisationally however its still RKU. Universities has good development systems and money behind plus often better infrastructure than many proclubs, for an example Zweigen Kanazawa rent the clubhouse and training facility of Hokuriku University. But since the universities are not bound in a hometown area (Just see the universities in Osaka and Kyoto moving to Nara or Shiga) they cant be expected any good support.
If the team can't be viable it won't make it whether college, company, or independent. Company and pro teams also could move just as easily as universities, and eventually to be a pro team any team would need to only meet the minimum requirements set by the league. Even with a strong connection (such as Yamaha with Jubilo; anyone visiting that stadium is basically on company grounds) as long as a team has legal independence, proper infrastructure, and enough public support upon promotion, is strong connection to a company or university as a sponsor so negative? With RKU as an example, living so close and going to many games, I can promise that that team in particular has very good hometown pride and support. But the town is very small and if staying in Ibaraki there are only 3 stadiums for J. League: Mito for J2, or Kasamatsu or Kashima for J1. In the recent past, Kusatsu moved to Maebashi which is a longer drive than Tokyo to Mount Fuji, Verdy and Consadole also moved in the past... It's an unfortunate reality. But if there wouldn't be the chance to be profitable after becoming pro, it wouldn't be allowed. I think we've all seen how strict the league can be in ensuring that before someone can join.
Kagoshima was today awarded a J-league 100 years vision status. FC Imabari in the regionals owned by former NT coach Okada will be playing with the dancetroupe Exile on their backs as the management company has become one of the main sponsors of the club.
http://www.fcimabari.com/club/about.html It's really a very good upgrade, more professional looks, although the logotype somehow a little bit difficult to read
I am torn on this. I know the fans are quite angry that the popular city mascot Barry was left out. Barry in the logo made a perfekt connection between club and community. The old overall design worked well with club image logo and barry and still so new that it could not be associated with anything negative. In another word this makeover doesnt winn that much and if I was Imabari city officials I would feel Okada was trying to distance the club from the city which is not a good thing when Okada are petitioning for e new SSS. On the other side I like the nerdy thing about the central part of the crest, the sexagon with 3 waves. This is the crests of several Daimyo houses emerged from the area (Koono, Kurushima, Tokunou, Toi, Inaba). They all derived from an ancient chieftain clan called Ochi which is one of the few stemclans of Japan not deriving at any time with a branchof the imperial family (Theories therefore says this clan can be as old that imperial family) The point is the Ochi clan emerged from Imabari City (which is actually not that wellknown among people from Imabari). The negative side of this crest is unfortunately that the variation used in this club crest are used among branches thats not associated with the area. Like Kurushima family that started as pirates on the Kurushima Island just near, but got a fief as Daimyos in Oita prefecture and the same can be said of the several Inaba branches which took part of the governing of the Tokugawa Shogunate, while the original variation of the crest were 3 diagonal waves that was calm (I mean straight lines).
An interesting article from Okadas pressmeeting yesterday about new sponsorship in FC Imabari. Its in Japanese http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20150224-00000021-spnannex-socc