Japan’s pro rugby league new rules treat naturalized Japanese like second class citizens: To qualify as a “A1” they must have spent 6 of their 9 years of compulsory education in Japan, or be born in Japan or have parents/grandparents born in Japan.
by jjrs
30 comments
Wanting to import foreign concepts but deliberately exclude foreign people that relate to those concepts is one of the most Japanese things ever
Japan just doing everything possible to disappear this century
Demographic seppuku
This makes a lot of sense. In sports it can quickly become a matter of who has the most money to lure foreign athletes determines who wins. Australian males tend to be larger than Japanese males. So if you are a team or school who has enough money you can just stack your team with Australians and more than likely dominate any teams that are comprised of mostly Japanese males.
I’ve never understood granting citizenship to someone just because they make your national team more competitive in international competitions. It kinda defeats the point of such competition if you ask me.
This has been true in almost any sport in Japan. If this was a free-for-all there’s nothing keeping a team from just using their wealth to make an objectively better all-foreigner team. This wouldn’t be good for the growth of the domestic program and the national team
Unconstitutional because it literally says that all citizens are equal, plus the Nationality Law says that a naturalized citizen has the same rights as someone who acquired citizenship at birth, there‘s no second class citizenship (legallly).
Players shoumd organize and take this up all the way to the condtitutional court. I don’t even see how those LDP lapdog clowns will get out of this one. World Rugby should also suspend Japan as a member until this bullshit is reversed, just as FIFA and IOC did with South Africa. Unfortunately I doubt that will happen, especially since they gave Japan a few millions to develop the sport a few years ago (also probably overall just as corrupt and with little care for human rights as FIFA and the IOC, but since I don‘t follow rugby I can‘t really tell).
Typical Japan. This is the sort of shit that drives me nuts
Saw a thread in another sub Reddit the other day along the lines that the current government is pandering to the Japanese X/ Yahoo Japan crowd. Almost as if they have a list now and are ticking off the boxes one by one. Not much different than the US at this point, with the policies and rules.
Why are Japanese athletes so afraid of competing against actual athletes. Pro sports shouldn’t have to be patty cake leagues
Lol that means more going to play for Ireland and England then hehehe
So should the MLB do the same with Ohtani? or no?
What are you all going on about? This has been the norm for every pro and even semi pro sport in Japan since forever. You can’t have more than 4 foreign players, and that’s for a good reason. It’s not racism at all. It’s a Japanese league. It’s about giving the Japanese population a place to play their sport at the nation’s highest level. Otherwise it would include an unlimited amount of foreigners and you lose the whole point. I played American football in the top league in Japan, same rule. And, only 2 foreigners were allowed on the field per team at the same time. If you getting sour about this you’re not thinking deeply enough about why it’s a standard policy.
I wonder how many of the commentors in this thread have been to a pro rugby league game in Japan?
This is a very interesting debate. Is it racism? Objectively yes. Is it necessary? Maybe.
It’s similar to the trans-gender athlete debate. Both sides have valid arguments. Trans-women who were gender assigned as males at birth tend to be physically stronger than their female peers, so it can be argued that they have an unfair advantage. But at the same time they do clearly have a right to be identified as women. So, does that right extend to sports? This is a real conundrum.
It’s the same with a sport like rugby. There are plenty of ethnic groups out there where adult men are statistically stronger/faster/etc. than their Japanese peers, so if a club is allowed to stack their team with foriegn athletes, they may be able to get an advantage on the field.
But on the other hand, isn’t it racism to exclude foreign players from the same opportunities? What if they go so far as to obtain Japanese citizenship? What then?
It’s easy to argue either way but it wouldn’t make that argument right. It’s a very complex issue.
Someone’s going to get sued I think
people when they find out not thing but japan
Surely illegal?
Sumo also does the same crap.. shameful and clearly unconstitutional but no one has challenged it
Wait, so a condition of employment is submitting lineage proof?
Isn’t that…ummm…
Nevermind I guess…
Would anyone miss Rugby?
Japanese circle jerk
Let them extinct themselves. I need more popcorn.
This doesn’t sound massively different from the homegrown player criteria that exists in the premier league?
I qualify as all of these (so does my mother) and yet I know that I still won’t be accepted as culturally fully because I have a quarter muddle blood in me. That’s Japan for ya
what’s with this wave of discriminatory legislation in Japan
The Japanese get to determine what it means to be Japanese… even if it’s racist.
This directive may have been semi imposed upon them by the IRB. Perhaps it needs to be looked into further.
Certainly, I have felt that both New Zealand and Australia have robbed the pacific nations of the talent and recognition they deserve for decades by poaching their best talent at a schooling age whilst also denying their own citizens a fair platform to participate; it’s a shallow victory on those terms.
I begrudgingly support some of the tightening to preserve the integrity of Japanese culture but this is just racist.
I think this is more interesting than clubs buying people and moving them around. You’re just watching whatever corporation has the most money to buy whichever set of players it wants.
Sport is more interesting when you are watching the actual product of the country, culture and people.
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