The burgeoning sporting relationship with Victoria鈥檚 sister city of Morioka, Japan, has expanded with the announcement Monday the Victoria Highlanders of the USL Premier Development League will partner with the Grulla Morioka club.
The Highlanders are in the amateur PDL and Grulla Morioka in the professional J3 League of Japan. The agreement will see an exchange of both first-team and academy players as well as other initiatives between the clubs.
It is part of a broader Victoria-Morioka sports initiative in which several of the Canadian national teams that train on the Island, or Lower Mainland, will hold their pre-camps in Morioka ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Adding to the connections, Langford-based Team sa国际传媒 will close pool play Oct. 13 against Namibia in the 2019 rugby World Cup in Japan with what is expected to be home-crowd advantage at Kamaishi Memorial Recovery Stadium in the prefecture of Iwate. The capital of Iwate is Morioka, and fans in Iwate have plans to welcome the Canadian team in a big way because of the Victoria connection.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really exciting to see a number of Canadian teams using Morioka as a pre-training venue for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. And now the Highlanders, as well, have built on that,鈥� said Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps.
鈥淪occer is an international sport and this will expose to the Highlanders players how soccer is played in Japan. Our sister city relationship with Morioka goes back more than 30 years and is a means of building an invaluable cultural relationship. The mayor of Morioka, who will be here in couple of weeks, is keen on hosting as many teams as possible for the Olympics.鈥�
Among the national governing bodies that have made site visits to Morioka, arranged through co-ordinator Mark deFrias of Victoria, are Rugby sa国际传媒, Water Polo sa国际传媒, Volleyball sa国际传媒, Basketball sa国际传媒, Swimming sa国际传媒, Diving sa国际传媒 and Sport Climbing sa国际传媒.
DeFrias is also GM of the Highlanders.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a unique partnership,鈥� he said, of the deal with Grulla Morioka.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the first J-League club from any division to partner with a soccer team in North America. It鈥檚 a big step for us to connect with Japanese football.鈥�
Twitter.com/tc_vicsports
