Japanese rules : why the Japanese needed football and how they got it

Who needs football? A little over 10 years ago Japanese decided they did. After treating it as an irrelevant sport for over 100 years they launched a national project aimed at enrolling themselves as one of world's football powers. In true Japanese style, they were determined to get everything right and money was least of their problems. When professional J.League was set up in 1993, it was hyped…