Sint-Truiden have “too many” Japanese players and won’t sign any this summer

Sint-Truiden will not be acquiring any more Japanese players in the summer transfer market, club chairman David Meekers told newspaper Het Belang van Limburg and reported via voetbalkrant.

The Belgian first division club has been actively recruiting Japanese players since November 2017, when they were bought over by Japanese company DMM. For the 2018/19 season, they have under their stable a total of six: Takehiro Tomiyasu, Yuta Koike, Wataru Endo, Takahiro Sekine, Daichi Kamada and Kosuke Kinoshita.

The Japanese contingent have contributed to Sint-Truiden’s good results on the field, particularly 15-goal Kamada and defensive rock Tomiyasu. Although the club failed to make it to the championship playoff by one league placing, it still managed a league position of 7th, its highest in the past nine years.

In spite of that, Meekers said, “We will not sign any more Japanese players. As a matter of fact, we bought too many last summer,” and continued, citing a change in policy to focus locally, “We’ll look for Belgian players, more specifically Limburg players.”

Of the six players, Kamada and Sekine will return to their parent clubs (Eintracht Frankfurt and Ingolstadt respectively) once their loan expire. Koike has been sent on loan to Kashima Antlers in March. Highly-rated Tomiyasu is rumoured to have attracted interest from multiple clubs, while Endo stated last month that his chance of staying at Sint-Truiden was “50-50”.

For Japanese football news: CoolJapan Soccer

Source: Yahoo

Image: gettyimages