{"id":871444,"date":"2026-08-28T12:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T12:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871444\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T12:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T12:36:12","slug":"japanese-rugby-officials-roll-back-on-proposed-restrictions-on-certain-foreign-born-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/871444\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese rugby officials roll back on proposed restrictions on certain foreign-born players"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rugby officials in Japan on Friday said they had reached a settlement to allow players with Japanese nationality, but who were born elsewhere, to qualify for the top eligibility category in the domestic competition, Rugby League One.<\/p>\n

Under proposed rules changes that were to go into effect when the league opens in December, players with Japanese passports, but who were born outside Japan and not educated there during childhood, would have had their eligibility restricted.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Friday, Japan Rugby League One said it decided \u201cto revise certain requirements\u201d. It said players who acquired Japanese nationality before the end of May 2025 would be treated on a par with native-born players.<\/p>\n

Twenty-four players affected by the proposed rules change \u2013 all with Japanese passports but born elsewhere \u2013 filed a suit in a Japanese court and pushed for the rollback. Among them was Timothy Lafaele, who starred for Japan in the 2019 World Cup, which was held in Japan.<\/p>\n

The proposed rules had specified that players had to live in Japan for \u201cat least six of nine years\u201d of junior school and junior high school to qualify for the highest category of eligibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeague One takes seriously the feedback received regarding this system change, as well as the fact that prior explanations and communication with all relevant parties were insufficient, and will reflect this in the future management of the league,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\"TimothyTimothy Lafaele played for Japan in the 2019 Rugby World Cup quarter-final against South Africa in Tokyo. Photo: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rugby officials in Japan on Friday said they had reached a settlement to allow players with Japanese nationality,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,941,174301,54395,405302,405304,760,190835,213527,85,439954,21418],"class_list":["post-871444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-japan","tag-japan-rugby-league-one","tag-japanese","tag-japanese-prime-minister-sanae-takaichi","tag-lafaele","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-league-one","tag-samoan","tag-sports","tag-timothy-lafaele","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}