Nurturing Comprehensive Community Sport Clubs
Comprehensive Community Sport Clubs (comprehensive clubs) are defined by the Ministr y of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology in the Basic Plan for Sport of 2012 as “multi-disciplinary, multi-generational, multi-purpose sport clubs that provide sporting opportunities to ordinary citizens according to their age, interest, technical ability etc.”
The JSPO began nurturing such clubs in model districts on the foundations of Junior Sport Clubs in the 1997 fiscal year. Today, the creation of comprehensive clubs, activities to promote their self-sufficiency, and the appointment of managers are furthered with assistance from the Japan Sport Council’s Sports Promotion Lottery (toto/BIG).
The Nationwide Council for Comprehensive Community Sport Clubs (SC Nationwide Network) was established within the JSPO in the 2008 fiscal year as a place for the sharing of information and exchanges to promote the foundation, development and good management of the comprehensive clubs.
At the prefectural level, Comprehensive Community Sport Clubs Coordinating Committees (prefectural committees) in all 47 prefectures of Japan now belong to the SC Nationwide Network, and 2,769 comprehensive clubs have joined it.
Building Rich Communities through Sport
The JSPO promotes these clubs under the 2018 Plan for Nurturing Comprehensive Community Sport Clubs (2018 Nurturing Plan) adopted and promulgated in the 2017 fiscal year. The 2018 Nurturing Plan is based on the guiding principle of building rich communities through sport and presents the basic approaches and tangible measures required to achieve this.
In the 2018 fiscal year, the JSPO commissioned and appointed 21 club advisers (in 21 prefectures) to coordinate every step of the way from the establishment of comprehensive clubs to self-sufficiency and activities in close contact and cooperation with
the Prefectural Amateur Sports Associations in order to enhance and strengthen the work of the comprehensive clubs.
To reinforce the network further, club staffs also meet together at Club Network Action Meetings in nine regional blocks to share every kind of information and seek solutions to issues which arise in club establishment and management.
Assistance is also provided by the Japan Sport Council’s Sports Promotion Lottery (toto/BIG). In the 2018 fiscal year, this consisted of support to found 8 new clubs, help 47 clubs become self-sufficient, and employ
managers at 43 clubs. In addition, a system for the registration and certification of comprehensive clubs has been under consideration at every level since the 2015 fiscal year.
The vigorous work of promoting the network will continue as laid down in the 2018 Nurturing Plan in close coordination with the SC Nationwide Network and through the exchange of information between comprehensive clubs, exchange activities between clubs, etc.
