For a few hours on Sunday, it appeared as though the J. League was preparing to abolish its long-cherished hometown regulations, which were established at the time of the league’s founding to encourage clubs to create closer ties with their local community.
According to Sports Nippon, the league was preparing to scrap its current hometown rules and introduce a new system that would allow clubs in rural areas to play home games and establish academy or school programs in urban areas.
The newspaper also reported that the league was going to allow clubs to sell their naming rights to corporate sponsors — a drastic change hearkening back to the pre-J. League era, when Urawa Reds were known as Mitsubishi SC and Sanfrecce Hiroshima played as Mazda SC.