A bullying incident within a renowned Kumamoto high school soccer team will be investigated by a third-party committee after the prefectural board of education deemed it a "serious situation" under the anti-bullying law.
A member of the Ozu High School team, which counts several J. League and Japan national team players among its alumni, was allegedly forced to kneel on the ground in apology while naked in January 2022 and was filmed by senior members of the team.
According to the board of education, the victim — who was a first-year student, or roughly 15 to 16 years old — at the time of the incident, reported to his homeroom teacher in July this year that an older team member had claimed to have been called names by the first-year student, forced him to apologize by kneeling on the ground naked and took a picture of him.