Japan rebrands its closed door sport to remote matches in spin effort

While most of the world gears up for sport behind closed doors without, Japan is getting to set to play "Remote Matches" The Japan Top League Alliance, consisting of the country's 12 top sport leagues, announced the new name on Monday in an effort to put a more positive spin on sport without fans.

Saburo Kawabuchi, former Japan Football Association President and the head of the Japan Top League Alliance, said during an online press conference that the term "games behind closed doors" has a negative image in sport, so he wanted to change the name to something more positive before resuming games

Japan lifted its coronavirus state of emergency last month which allowed professional baseball to announce its resumption on June 19th while soccer's J.League will restart first division play on July 4th with games now to be referred to as "Remote Match".

(Image credit: Representative)