J.League is the short name for the Japanese Professional Football League. The League currently consists of two division, J1 and J2, which are composed of 18 and 20 teams, respectively. Founded in 1992, the League has worked very hard to promote soccer in Japan by promoting a one hundred year vision of over 100 professional level teams in Japan by 2092. Their success can be attested to by the Japanese National Team reaching the Round of 16 in the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
In 1988, Japanese football was in a deplorable state. The best football in Japan was the Japanese Soccer League, a group of amateur teams. None of these teams were on par with any of the best teams in the world. In fact, they didn’t even rate within the top division teams in Asia. Over the next four years, the Japanese Football Association worked to create a professional league which would rival those of other nations.
At the Yamazaki Nabisco Cup in 1992, the ten founding teams of the J.League competed for the first time. Within a year, the League was underway. Initially, the League enjoyed amazing success. By bringing in famous foreign players who were past their prime, the League set attendance records which have yet to be broken. However, this level of success could not last.
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Over the next decade, the League struggled to maintain financial stability. Teams folded and merged, and sponsors pulled their funding as Japan struggled with an economic collapse. With the League having added too many teams too quickly, the obvious move was made to create a second tier league. The J2 League was made up of some teams from the J1 League as well as some from the old Japanese Soccer League. This worked hand in hand with the new one hundred year vision, and established a system more like the major European leagues.
The J.League has enjoyed a lot of success, and has evolved into a modern professional soccer league on par with the major leagues of Asia. Increased involvement of teams in Pan Asian league games has taken Japanese soccer further. On a global level, the best players move on to play in European leagues. An example is Keisuke Honda, who played for the J1 team Nagoya Grampus Eight before traveling to the Netherlands, Moscow, and finally Liverpool to play for their respective teams. He reunited with Japanese players in the 2010 World Cup, where his free kick skills were of considerable use in getting to the Round of 16.
In all, the J.League has enjoyed considerable success in its nearly twenty years as the premier league in Japanese soccer. There are rumors of another rearrangement, but instead of ensuring league survival, this would be to allow for growth into the Asian league play and to create space for more elite play on the level of Europe or Brazil. Regardless, it is still the one hundred year vision that keeps the organization on track and looking to the future.