Nihon Univ. Football Coach to Resign over Dangerous Tackle

May 20, 2018

Tokyo- The head coach of Nihon University's American football team offered Saturday to resign over a dangerous tackle by one of his players that left an opponent player injured in a recent match.

Masato Uchida made the announcement after visiting officials of the Kwansei Gakuin University team, of which the injured players is a member, earlier in the day.

At the meeting in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, Uchida and other officials of Nihon University apologized to the injured player, his family and others.

After arriving at Tokyo International Airport at Haneda, Uchida expressed his intention to resign. "All the responsibility for the problem lies with me. I'm really sorry," he told reporters.

But he did not say anything in detail about the tackle in question.

During the match in Tokyo on May 6, a quarterback of the Kwansei Gakuin Fighters was hit from behind by a defensive player of the Nihon University Phoenix, about two seconds after throwing the ball. The quarterback suffered damage to his back and knee that will take three weeks to fully heal.

The Fighters sent a complaint to the Phoenix on May 10 and held a press conference on May 12 to raise the issue.

The Phoenix gave a response in a statement on Tuesday, claiming that the team did not told any of its members to rough play intentionally.

"We demand that players give their all in line with rules," the statement said. "The problem lies in a gap between instructions by coaches and how players took the instructions."

The Kwansei Gakuin team rejected the statement and demanded that the Nihon University club make an additional response about whether there was any instruction to play foul by around Thursday.

On Saturday, officials of the discipline committee of the Kantoh Collegiate Football Association, to which Tokyo-based Nihon University belongs, also visited Kwansei Gakuin University to conduct a hearing.

The video of the dangerous tackle was broadcast repeatedly on television and went viral on the Internet, sparking a wave of criticism in Japan. Jiji Press