A study on consciousness of career planning among professional football players in Japan

摘要

Introduction: The baseball and sumo were one of the traditional and popular sports in Japan. These sports have many popular professional athletes and are taken by Japanese media ery day. Taking into such condition into considerations, it can be said that these sports have taken root in Japanese culture as professional sports. On the other hand, there were some less-developed professional sports such as football, volleyball, and basketball that appeared in comparatively recent y in Japan. Although these sports have made much effort to success as a business, they didn't earn sufficient revenue until now. Relating to such circumstance, there were much hostile conditions surrounding professional athletes in Japan. One of the most stressful problems is dismissal. There were only a few athletes those who can make their living as professional athletes for a long time. Moreover, a lot of athletes perience a career transition through dismissal and retirement. Therefore, career support for professional athletes is paid a special attention as emergency matter in the professional sports business. This problem is especially remarkable in Japanese professional football league organization (J-league). In J-league, over 130 players were dismissed every year. Moreover, it was reported that the average retirement of the J-league player is 26 years old. Furthermore, there is a fact that many players dedicated to competitive activity with high anxiety toward second career. As the measures of such problems among J-league players, we believe that causing a consciousness toward career planning was meaningful not only for construction of their new career with satisfaction but also for reduction of the anxiety. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to clarify the degree and relationships of a consciousness toward second career planning and anxiety among J-league player. We believe that these attempts contribute to elucidate some useful knowledge for career support among J-league players.