Kozo Tashima brings decades in Japanese football to FIFA presidency bid

Kozo Tashima is poised to become the first Japanese candidate for the FIFA presidency after announcing plans to challenge Gianni Infantino in the governing body’s March election. The 68-year-old former player, coach and administrator has the Japan Football Association’s backing and says his campaign is driven by concerns about integrity in a sport shaped by commercial interests.

Tashima has questioned whether FIFA can address its own problems and argued that allowing Infantino to continue without an election would be the worst outcome. He said two decisions surrounding this year’s World Cup troubled him: FIFA’s unexpected lifting of a ban on United States player Folarin Balogun following an intervention by US President Donald Trump, and American authorities’ travel restrictions on Iran’s team.

His involvement in football began after he watched the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Born in southern Kumamoto, Tashima went on to captain his school team to victory in Japan’s prestigious national high school championship. With no professional football available in Japan at the time, he intended to become a physical education teacher. He enrolled at university and earned a call-up to the senior national team while studying.

After graduation, Tashima played for a club in Japan’s amateur league, but retired soon afterwards and travelled to Germany to train as a coach. His studies at the German Sport University Cologne changed his understanding of sport’s place in society. He recalled being struck by the players’ technical ability and by how scientific and systematic German training already was in 1980.

Returning to Japan, he sought to apply those lessons to the country’s football development. He coached a university side before joining the JFA, where his responsibilities included development programmes and coaching national youth teams. He advanced through the association and became its president in 2016, while also serving on the Asian Football Confederation executive committee and the FIFA Council.

One of his most consequential decisions as JFA president came two months before the 2018 World Cup in Russia, when he dismissed national coach Vahid Halilhodzic. Unpopular with the players, Halilhodzic was replaced by Akira Nishino. Japan subsequently reached the last 16 before losing to Belgium. Tashima said responsibility for the team rested with him as president, even though he had not appointed Halilhodzic.

Despite his senior roles, Tashima has generally maintained a low public profile and a reputation for reliability. A rare appearance beyond sports coverage came in March 2020, when he became one of Japan’s first public figures to contract coronavirus. He left the JFA presidency in 2024 and was appointed honorary president.

Tashima says his FIFA candidacy is intended to support football’s continued development worldwide. He has framed the campaign as being about more than the election result, emphasising his desire to share the integrity he believes Japanese football has established over the years.