Japan's baseball, soccer leagues give up on April restarts as COVID-19 cases increase
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and with athletes in both leagues having been infected, Nippon Professional Baseball and the J. League will start and resume their seasons, respectively, even later than currently scheduled. The joint task force formed by the two biggest professional ...
The J. League plans to resume first-division matches on May 9 after a hiatus of more than two months due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, chairman Mitsuru Murai said Wednesday. The league held an extraordinary session of its executive committee Tuesday and decided to abandon ...
On a day when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe admitted postponing the Tokyo Olympics may be unavoidable, medical experts suggested it could be possible for the top-flight Japanese baseball and soccer seasons to resume by the end of next month. Nippon Professional Baseball and the J. ...
COVID-19 strikes Japanese soccer
Since late February, Japanese soccer's professional and amateur competitions have shut down in an attempt to protect players, coaches and fans from the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak that has forced the cancellation of major sporting events around the world. On Tuesday, a wrench was thrown into ...
Task force, panel unveil guidelines for coping with COVID-19 crisis
While the COVID-19 outbreak has greatly impacted sports leagues in Japan, the joint task force formed by Nippon Professional Baseball and the J. League and its medical panel introduced proposals to help the leagues and their fans properly cope with the virus. The ...
J. League running out of scheduling options
The J. League is not without options as it adjusts its schedule in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. But If play does not resume early next month, those options will become increasingly less appealing to club and league officials hoping to avoid making alterations ...
NPB to delay start of regular season due to ongoing COVID-19 outbreak
Nippon Professional Baseball has made the decision to postpone the start of its regular season as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, the league announced on Monday afternoon. The decision comes nine years after the 2011 campaign was postponed in the aftermath of the ...
J. League fans make best of virus-induced sabbatical
No games, no problem — as long as you've got a Twitter account. Following last Tuesday's decision by the J. League to suspend fixtures through March 15 — beginning with several Levain Cup games on Feb. 25, one day after the announcement — fans across ...
NPB and J. League join forces to combat COVID-19
Nippon Professional Baseball and the J. League, two of Japan's biggest professional sports circuits, will form a tag team amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the two entities announced in a Tokyo news conference on Monday. On Tuesday, the two leagues will officially launch a joint task ...
J. League chairman Mitsuru Murai faces another test in COVID-19
Mitsuru Murai knows a thing or two about tough decisions. After all, they've defined his tenure as J. League chairman over the last six years. Tuesday was the latest such example, as Murai announced that the league would suspend its competitions for the next three weeks ...
VAR and contact guidelines will change look of J. League officiating
Under normal circumstances, the Japan Football Association would prefer that its referees be conductors, blending into the background and occasionally providing a guiding whistle as the players take center stage. But after a 2019 season that saw match officials thrust into the national spotlight, 2020 ...
