Takeshi Okada, vice-president of the Japan Football Association, announced his resignation on the 28th of last month, partway through a term that was due to run until March 2028. The JFA is in turmoil over the departure.
The stated cause is Okada's anger at how JFA president Tsuneyasu Miyamoto handled Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president. But that is not the whole story, Daily Shincho reported. Okada, 70, had already been furious at what Miyamoto, 49, was saying and doing.
Okada had been seen as the president's backer and a kind of guardian to the Miyamoto administration. The question now is why he turned his back on it.
A coaching plan Miyamoto decided alone
One source of Okada's distrust, set out in the first part of Daily Shincho's account, was Miyamoto's unilateral push to hire a foreign coach for the senior national team. Okada lost confidence in the president over the plan.
The second part traces how that distrust grew. Daily Shincho reported that Okada spoke candidly about Miyamoto this summer.
The article's headline quotes Okada saying there is "no respect for the national team manager." The material does not give the full context of the remark.
Kubo's marriage, and a warning about his form
The same edition reported that Japan midfielder Takefusa Kubo, 25, is marrying the actress Haruka Fukuhara, 28, who is three years his senior.
It cited a folk belief in Japanese sport that players who marry older women go on to great things, naming the late Katsuya Nomura, Ichiro and Daisuke Matsuzaka as examples.
Among the current national squad, the oldest member, Yuto Nagatomo, 40, is married to the actress Airi Taira, two years his senior. Former captain Ko Itakura, 29, announced in August that he had married the actress Haruna Kawaguchi, also two years older.
The report said Kubo's prospects as a player are nonetheless clouded, without giving the reason in the available text.