2010 Japan Football League

Overview

At the end of the 2009 season, three new clubs were promoted from the Japanese Regional Leagues by virtue of their final placing in the Regional League promotion series:

Before the season corporate TDK SC !TDK SC were renamed to Blaublitz Akita !Blaublitz Akita and started operations as an independent football club. Hitachi Tochigi Uva S.C. has dropped the company prefix and changed its name to simply Tochigi Uva F.C.

Matsumoto Yamaga were approved as J. League associate members at the annual meeting in February. Zweigen Kanazawa applied for the membership later in April but the application was not accepted because of incomplete documentation.

Gainare Tottori !Gainare Tottori are the first club to be promoted to J. League Division 2 as champions since Ehime FC !Ehime FC in 2005 season.

Table

Updated to games played on November 28, 2010.
Source: Japan Football League
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) number of goals scored
^† Denotes clubs that occupied top 3 places at the end of the first half of the season (17th week) and were seeded for 2010 Emperor's Cup. These clubs were automatically qualified for the tournament, while each of other JFL clubs had to go through the prefectural qualifier.
¹ Must hold J. League Associate Membership, pass a final inspection by J. League (club name shown in bold) and finish no less than in fourth place to be promoted. Machida Zelvia !Machida Zelvia have announced that their stadium is not meeting the J. League standards so they are not eligible for the promotion till 2012 season. Later the announcement of the same kind was made by V-Varen Nagasaki !V-Varen Nagasaki, although their eligibility date is as far as 2013 season.
² Play-off series' and direct relegation occurrence is dependent on the number of places available after promotions to J2.
(C) = Champion; (R) = Relegated; (P) = Promoted; (E) = Eliminated; (O) = Play-off winner; (A) = Advances to a further round.
Only applicable when the season is not finished:
(Q) = Qualified to the phase of tournament indicated; (TQ) = Qualified to tournament, but not yet to the particular phase indicated; (RQ) = Qualified to the relegation tournament indicated; (DQ) = Disqualified from tournament.

Results

Updated to games played on November 28, 2010.
Source: First round, Second round
1 ^{^} The home team is listed in the left-hand column.
Colours: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Attendances

Updated to games played on November 28, 2010
Source: First round, Second round
Notes:
^† Team played previous season in Regional Leagues.
^‡ Some Honda Lock games were played without spectators because of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Miyazaki Prefecture.

Promotion and relegation

Due to Gainare Tottori being promoted to J2, the Regional League promotion series champions and runners-up, Kamatamare Sanuki !Kamatamare Sanuki and Nagano Parceiro !Nagano Parceiro, were promoted automatically. The third-placed Sanyo Electric Sumoto S.C. faced Arte Takasaki in the promotion and relegation series.

Arte Takasaki won the series 4–1 on aggregate and stayed in JFL.