The Japan Blind Football Association (JBFA) on Monday announced the formation of a women’s national team as the sport seeks to include more female players at all age levels.<\/p>\n
The team, which will officially begin activities\u00a0in April, will\u00a0be managed by JBFA head of development Shigeo Murakami. The 34-year-old was the\u00a0first-ever goalkeeper for the country’s blind football men’s national team, leading them to first place in the 2005 Asian Blind Football Championships.<\/p>\n
“Until now our female players have had to train with the men in less-than-ideal circumstances, and it’s thanks to the support of everyone at the JBFA that we can create this national team and challenge ourselves at the international level,” Murakami commented.<\/p>\n
The team will debut at the inaugural International Blind Sports Association (IBSA)\u00a0Women’s Blind Football Tournament 2017, to be held from May 2 in Vienna, Austria. Japan will be the first Asian country to field a women’s national team in the sport, according to a JBFA official.<\/p>\n
Blind football, a five-a-side game contested on futsal-sized court surrounded by boards, uses balls filled with metal bearings\u00a0which ring when kicked. Field players, who wear eye masks and attempt to score against sighted goalkeepers, navigate the pitch solely through audio cues.<\/p>\n
The 2014 IBSA Blind Football World Championships, which drew\u00a0thousands of fans to\u00a0Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park, featured Japan, China, and Korea Republic alongside eventual champions Brazil and several other South American and European teams.<\/p>\n