Plans for 'new' Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium an absolute disgrace

TOKYO — I have written extensively about the ramifications and repercussions of allowing the Meiji Jingu baseball stadium redevelopment project to go through. But so far I have neglected another very important and tragic aspect of the plan, the loss of the rugby stadium, which is slated to be demolished, rebuilt half a block away on the site of the ballpark, and transformed into what amounts to a domed concert hall.  The baseball stadium will exchange places with the rugby field and in its new incarnation become part of a business and shopping center surrounded by skyscrapers. Several hundred century old trees will be cut down in the process. 

As indicated in a previous column, this is being done without a public referendum, without approval from the Environmental Assessment Committee, and against the objections of  the Japan Committee for UNESCO’s International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS, all while ignoring a Tokyo Shimbun poll in 2022 which showed that 69.5% of Tokyo voters were against the Jingu Gaien redevelopment project.

Rugby has a longer history in Japan than even baseball, with the Yokohama Football Club being founded in 1866, which merged with other Yokohama sports clubs in 1884 including the Yokohama Baseball Club to create the founding of the Yokohama Football Club on the grounds of what is now the Yokohama Country and Athletic Club (YCAC), by a group of British naval officers assigned to Japan.