ACA Football Partners Pte. Ltd. (Singapore, CEO: Hiroyuki Ono, hereinafter ACAFP) is delighted to announce that Kunishige Kamamoto, a legend of Japanese football, becomes our Football Ambassador.
ACAFP keeps evolving its multi-club ownership project at global level since we became the owner of KMSK Deinze under the mission of “Release the value of Sports & evolve”. Since Mr. Kamamoto has a tremendous experience and achievements both at the Japan Football League and the national team since at the dawn of its age, he will install his rich knowledge to ACAFP to accelerate our business. We plan to have a regular meeting connecting our dots in Belgium, Singapore, and Japan. Moreover we hope he has a chance to come over to visit Europe, and also we hope that he can contribute finding and raising young talented star players in Asia.
Comments from Kunishige Kamamoto
“When I first heard about ACAFP’s project itself, I was very excited that I felt I could see something different than what I have seen before. ACAFP has a clear vision and is challenging at the global stage to release the business and entertainment values of football. I will share my experience I gained as an Olympic medalist and football coach at J.LEAGUE club, and as a part of the whole football family, I will try my best to support ACAFP’s further challenges from Japan.”
Comment from Hiroyuki Ono, CEO of ACAFP and Vice Chairman, Board of Director, KMSK Deinze
“We deeply appreciate our opportunity of asking such a legend in Japan to become our Football Ambassador. Our journey has just started but we are eager to carry out innovative projects to be a part of the growth of the football industry. We are reassured by the advice from Mr. Kamamoto, who got over pressures and difficulties both in Japan and foreign countries as a football player. We will keep humbleness to stay in our mind and challenge ourselves everyday.”
About Kunishige Kamamoto
Kunishige Kamamoto was born on April 15th, 1944. He participated in the Tokyo Olympics while he was at the Waseda university, and joined football club Yanmar Diesel after graduation. He made an amazing performance both in the Japan League and as a player for the national team of Japan. One of his biggest achievements was to become a top scorer at the Olympics in Mexico 1968. He scored 7 goals and helped Japan get the bronze medal. He scored 202 goals in total in the Japan League, played 76 games and scored 75 goals for the national team, which gives him a scoring rate of 98%. For a long time, this record was the international record and to this day it is still the record in Japan. As a member of the House of Councilors and also a member of the board of directors of the Japan Football Association, he played a crucial role in bringing the 2002 World Cup to Japan. He was elected for the first Japan Football Hall of Fame in 2005 at the youngest age, and he received the Order of the Rising Sun in 2014. After his retirement, he became a head coach at Yanmar Diesel and Gamba Osaka. Also he has held more than 1,300 soccer classes throughout Japan, teaching the joy of football to more than 500,000 children, and continues to contribute to the development of the football industry.
About ACA Football Partners
ACAFP is a Singapore-based football business company that plans to create multi-club ownership from Asia, and is a member of the ACA Group, whose core business is the private equity fund management. Distinguished football industry experts active in Europe have joined the team as founding members in support of ACAFP’s mission to “Release the value of Sports & Evolve”. In the future, ACAFP will further expand its network by executing capital and business alliances with partner clubs that support this mission, and will play a role in accelerating the global development of European football.
For more information about ACAFP, please visit the official website:
https://acafp.com/
About KMSK Deinze
Founded in 1926, KMSK Deinze is a historic football club belonging to the second division of the Belgian Pro League/First Division B. The city of Deinze, the home town of KMSK, is located in the East Flanders region and is known as a place where many wealthy people live.
In the 2019-20 season, the club was promoted to the second division of the Belgian Pro League. In the 2020-21 season, their first year of promotion, they finished a respectable fourth (out of eight clubs). The club is growing rapidly and has announced plans to build a new stadium.
For more information about KMSK Deinze, please visit the official website:
https://kmskdeinze.be/