Japanese Non-league Football News

Currently taking place in the Hokushinetsu region of Japan are the Prefectural Play-offs. This annual end-of-season tournament will determine which team from the Prefectural Leagues is promoted to Division 2 of the Hokushinetsu League in place of relegated side Toyama Shinjo Club; and which will take part in an additional Play-off against the team that finished second bottom of the Hokushinetsu League, Teihens FC.

Within the format of the competition, there is one participant from each of the five prefectures in the region plus one university team. Four of the sides have experience of Regional level football, with the exception of Tateyama Bears from Toyama and the Niigata University of Health & Welfare team. The full list of clubs taking part is as follows:

Fukui: Fukui KSC 福 井ＫＳＣ
Ishikawa: LionPower Komatsu ライオンパワー小松
Nagano: Nissei Resin 日精樹脂工業
Niigata: Nagaoka Billboard FC 長岡ビルボードFC
Toyama: Tateyama Bears 立山ベア－ズ
Universities: Niigata University of Health & Welfare 新潟医療福祉大学

The tournament is a round-robin affair with each team playing each other team once over five consecutive weekends. The results from the two rounds of matches played so far are as follows:

Sun 23 Sep: Fukui KSC 0-2 Niigata University of Health & Welfare
Sun 23 Sep: Tateyama Bears 1-4 LionPower Komatsu
Sun 23 Sep: Nissei Resin 5-0 Nagaoka Billboard FC

Sun 30 Sep: Nagaoka Billboard FC 1-2 Fukui KSC
Sun 30 Sep: LionPower Komatsu 1-2 Nissei Resin
Sun 30 Sep: Tateyama Bears 2-1 Niigata University of Health & Welfare