TOKYO (AP) — Timothy Lafaele is among the rugby players who have built their lives and playing careers in Japan, holding Japanese passports even though they were born outside the country. Under new eligibility rules proposed by local rugby officials, their future in the game has been thrown into doubt.
The rules, set to take effect in December when the Japan Rugby League One season opens, will classify even local passport-holders as foreigners, limiting their playing opportunities at domestic clubs where Japan-born players will get preference.
Lafaele, born in Samoa and in Japan since he was 18, has played 28 times for his adopted country, including a monumental victory over Ireland at the 2019 Rugby World Cup that Japan hosted. He said the rule change came "out of the blue" as he spoke Thursday in Tokyo at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, alongside lawyer Seiji Makino, who represents 24 players — all holding Japanese passports — in a suit pending before several Japanese courts.
"This is a very simple story," Makino said. "It is about players who built their lives and careers in Japan under one set of rules and are now having the ground moved from under their feet." Under the new rules, players must have resided in Japan for "at least six of nine years" of elementary school and junior high school to qualify for the highest eligibility category. "The passport says Japan," Makino said. "His national team is Japan but because of where he went to elementary school the league will now treat him differently from the Japanese players."
"To come to Japan, having given so much to the rugby here and the community and being treated this way, it just saddens us," Lafaele said. "Insulted is a strong word as well. To me, when this first rule came I did feel insulted."
The change comes amid a wider immigration debate in Japan, where Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has been pushing tougher policies on foreigners. Japan rugby officials say the pool of Japan-born players is shrinking and that limiting foreign influence will help boost it — a view Lafaele questions while understanding the other side. "I see both sides of it," he said. "I see where the Japanese boys are coming from. They see it as more opportunities for them to play."
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