Recent developments of Sports Governance in Japan
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COMMENT
Recent developments of Sports Governance in Japan The visit of the Japanese Delegation at Asser International Sports Law Centre, 27 May 2013 Petroula Lisgara
Published online: 13 September 2013 Ó T.M.C. Asser Instituut 2013
The Asser International Sports Law Centre (ISLC) hosted a small delegation of Japanese lawyers who are part of a ‘good governance in sport’ research project supported by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA). The Japanese delegation was on a research tour to gain information on sports governance in Europe that they might use to develop sports governance practices in Japan. The leader of the Japanese delegation, Mister Takuya Yamazaki reached out to Asser ISLC and requested a meeting to obtain information from Asser ISLC researchers and others. For the preparations of the meeting, Mr Yamasaki provided our researchers with a personal draft article entitled ‘Sports Governance in Japan’.1 The visit by the Japanese delegation reminded me of a television programme that I used to watch. As a 10-yearold child, I was thrilled to watch the adventures of the young Japanese ninja Igano Kabamaru. A young ninja was trained and educated under strict discipline which was imposed through excessive corporal abuse by his tutor, his grandfather; hinting at the correlation between sports and abuse. As Mr Yamazaki presented the current situation of sports governance in Japan, it was not too different from the 1980s cartoon series. Mr Yamazaki enumerated sports scandals that have shocked Japan. For example, in 2013, the accusations from 15 female judokas against their head tutor for ‘on-going corporal punishment’2 and in 2012, the suicide of a 17-year-old student and school athlete who suffered from corporal abuse by his coach, as was stated in the note that he left.3 Because such unfortunate incidents P. Lisgara (&) Asser International Sports Law Centre, T.M.C. Asser Institute, P.O. Box 30461, 2800 GL The Hague, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
overshadowed Japan’s candidacy for hosting 2020 Olympic Games, the Japanese Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) solicited for the reduction of violence in sports. Aside from the Japanese Sports Minister’s intentions and the Japanese Olympic Committee who condemned such practices, the recent scandals sparked a series of statements and commitments by the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations4 and the Japan Sports Law Association.5 Both associations emphasised the importance of imposing a rule of law in sports, improving sports governance, introducing methods to counteract violent incidents, creating an independent investigative body, facilitating measures of consultation and sorting out the ‘clandestine nature of sports associations’.6 In general, in Japan, the right to participate in sports is not linked to entertainment, but instead to the purposes of education. To understand this linkage, take an interesting example dating back to World War II when Japan was using sports to train its
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