ACL = Accidents, Casualties & Liabilities
Anyone who has been reading the Rising Sun News for any length of time is aware of what this writer thinks of the Asian Champions League, so Im sure you were not surprised by the scorn expressed in the title. However, over the past few months, in light of the efforts that Asian football officials and fans alike seem to be making to turn this into a truly worthwhile competition, we honestly did make an effort to revise our long-standing antipathy towards the competition. Indeed, as the 7:00PM kickoff time for the Kashima Antlers’ opening ACL contest approached, we were keenly attentive for perhaps the first time in three or four years, and were honestly . . . . Im not being facetious here . . . HONESTLY trying to focus on the positive, and looking for things to applaud and discuss in our post-match reports on this, and the subsequent match between Kawasaki Frontale and Seongnam.
Then the match kicked off, and those aspirations went straight out the window.
Sorry folks. No amount of mental gymnastics can ever dispel the reality that is staring at us from the TV screen. Any sober, fair-minded football fan who watches the Kashima and Kawasaki matches – even one who has no particular love for the J.League or Japanese football in general – would come away with the impression that ACL matches are a farce, a waste of time, and a serious hazard to any team that participates.
Naturally, the people who run the J.League and the JFA are sufficiently dependent upon the AFC to play along, and try their best to put on a brave face. So even though you can see pained expressions in the faces of people like Oswaldo Oliveira and Tsutomo Takahata as they give their per- and post-match interviews, you wont get any of them to openly admit to the press that they consider this competition a transparently fixed, brutally violent and essentially pointless competition. None of them wants to damage the reputation of sports in Asia, and so they grit their teeth and play along. But the players, and most especially the fans, are not fooled.
One pre-tournament article posted on the AFC’s official website speculated that Kashima Antlers fans “are desperate for the team to prove its worth in the ACL”, and another article on a general football news site took the rhetorical provocation even further: “It is a source of annoyance and frustration to fans of the Ibaraki club that in continental terms, fans see Gamba Osaka and Urawa Reds as Japan’s major clubs. The reason is simple. That duo have done something that Kashima have never managed – lifted the continental title.”
Hmmm . . .
I suppose somebody should have told the folks in Ibaraki how “annoyed” and “frustrated” they were supposed to be. Perhaps then a few of them would have shown up at the stadium to watch this professional wrestling exhibition masquerading as a football match. But the 4,500 or so who did show up managed to undercut by 50% the average number of spectators that attended Kashima’s NABISCO CUP home matches last season. It was not even 25% of the team's average league attendance recorded in 2009. Apparently, someone needs to explain to these silly people how important the ACL is. The only people in Ibaraki who werent yawning and flipping the channel to watch "Sanma Animal Park" were the handful of folks chewing on their fingernails and praying that all of the key players would make it through the full 90 minutes without serious injury.
But Kashima is certainly not the only place in Japan where people have less-than-favourable views of the competition. If you want an honest, accurate explanation of how Japanese players, coaches and fans feel about the ACL, then the best person to ask right now would be Kawasaki Frontale’s Kengo Nakamura. Of course . . . he wont be able to give you an answer for about two months. But once his broken jaw heals Im sure he will be happy to tell you his opinion. The fact that Nakamura’s assailant escaped any punishment whatsoever for deliberately smashing the Japan NT icon’s mandible with a forearm thrust is a good indication of the state of affairs in the AFC right now. If the same thing had occurred on the streets of Seongnam, outside the stadium, the assailant would be in a jail cell on charges of assault and battery. Instead, he is feted as one of the “stars” of the “action” on opening night in the ACL.
Of course, the assault on Nakamura was just one in a dizzying plethora of thuggish fouls and mayhem that take place on a regular basis in the ACL. By now, everybody has seen these incidents hundreds of times, and sights like this (not a foul, naturally) or this (this one went a bit too far . . the ref actually awarded a free kick) come as no surprise to anyone. If we thought it would have any impact whatsoever, we would post “highlights” of the Kashima and Kawasaki matches on Tuesday with a detailed discussion of how ridiculous the standard of officiating in ACL matches continues to be. But theres nobody left to convert, so why keep preaching?
A full four years ago, this very website observed that in order to earn legitimacy in the eyes of Japanese football fans, the ACL would have to do three things:
1) Improve the financial rewards to a level that at least matched the prize money from minor domestic competitions like the Xerox Cup and Nabisco Cup
2) Tighten up disciplinary standards in general, so that players (and fans as well) did not have to fear the worst every time they stepped on the pitch for an ACL match, and
3) Improve officiating standards SPECIFICALLY with respect to J.League team, so that there was no longer such a clear, well-founded and emotionally intense perception among Japanese fans that the ACL is rigged against Japanese teams.
The first of these three issues has been addressed to some extent. OK, its true that the winner of next weekend’s one-off Xerox Cup match will get more prize money than a team that fights through six tough pool matches and reaches the knockout round of the ACL (assuming they go no further). But at least the prize money is no longer laughable from a J.League team’s perspective.
The second issue . . . well . . . once again, youll get better feedback on this point if you go ask Kengo Nakamura for his opinion.
As for the third point . . . . please. Get real.
Even supposedly neutral observers from Australia, Malaysia and India posted comments describing the refs of the Kashima–Changchun contest as (in the words of one blogger) “amusing . . . to say the least”. Until AFC referees can make it through at least ONE match – just ONE 90 minute stretch – without making a call that convinces Japanese viewers that bias is the only possible explanation, no amount of publicity and no level of incentives are going to convince them that the ACL is a legitimate competition. Fans in this country have a ten-year backlog of memories like the two clips posted above, and to dispel the impression of favouritism that has been created, as a result, would almost require referees to bend over backwards in favour of the J.League teams. That might not seem equitable, but anything less than scrupulously balanced officiating only intensifies the deeply ingrained feelings of disgust and disdain for this competition that prevail among fans in Japan. When the very first day of ACL activity in 2010 brings howls of derision in Kashima and a thuggish jaw-breaking incident in Seongnam, you hardly need the Rising Sun News to explain why J.League fans have little love (or respect) for the ACL.
Several readers have already sent e-mails asking: “Does the RSN intend to just ignore ACL matches again, this year, or are you going to start posting reports?” It is probably too soon to answer that question. In all honesty, we would like to give the competition the coverage it deserves . . . but first the competition is going to have to demonstrate that it deserves coverage. When a night of football viewing leaves the writer feeling nothing but rage, disgust, and a deep feeling of injustice, any attempt to write a “match report” would simply degenerate into a rant much like the one you have just finished reading.
Although Wednesday's ACL matches seemed to be a bit better in terms of the officiating standards, Gamba Osaka in particular fell victim to the hazards of taking part in an event that opposing teams seem to view as little more than an opportunity to create mayhem. After the dust cleared, both of the team's starting centre backs (Yamaguchi and Nakazawa) had been injured seriously enough to exclude them from this weekend's Xerox Cup contest, defensive midfielder Tomokazu Myojin suffered an ankle injury that could take up to three weeks to heal, and wingback Akira Kaji was seen in the trainer's room with piles of ice on his ankle, with his availability for the Xerox Cup described as "50:50". Is it really worth it to take part in the ACL, if the cost is to see the core of your defence banished to the trainer's room for up to three weeks? Sorry, but I dont see the value in such a trade-off.
If anyone in JFA House is reading this report, here is a suggestion that just MIGHT get those clueless loudmouths in the AFC to pay attention. Simply insist that from now on, the organizers of the ACL will have to assume the salaries of any players injured in ACL action, for the length of their rehabilitation. And unless they agree to do so, J.League teams will withdraw from the competition (trust me - that latter possibility would actually be welcomed gratefully by an awful lot of your fans). Until something is done to enforce minimum standards of fair play and make this competition both safe and equitable for all participants, J.League teams should NOT be taking part in it.
Period.
