While J. League Chairman Mitsuru Murai will perhaps be best remembered for masterminding the league’s blockbuster decade-long, $2 billion domestic broadcasting deal with sports streaming service DAZN, he will also leave in 2022 having overseen one of the league’s largest periods of expansion and shifts in player development.
Since Murai’s tenure began in the winter of 2014, the third-division J3 League has welcomed six clubs from the Japan Football League. Even more are waiting in the wings, some with J3 licenses and others with Hundred Year Club Status, the first required step to join the J. League.
In that period, a record number of Japanese players have left for European clubs — leaving the J. League at times bereft of homegrown star power as former national team stars such as Kengo Nakamura begin to retire.