V-Varen Nagasaki is a Japanese J2 League football club based in Nagasaki. The club was established in 1985 as Ariake Football Club till they merged with Kunimi Football Club in 2005 and adopted the present name. The club gained promotion into the J. League Division 2 in 2012for the first time in their history after finishing as the champions in the 2012 Japan Football League and hired Nagasaki native Takuya Takagi to coach the club for the 2013 season. On 11 November 2017, the club clinched promotion to the J1 League for the first time in their history after a 3-1 home win over Kamatamare Sanuki.
History
V-Varen Nagasaki, since 2006, had been contending for the Kyūshū Soccer League championship and thus a place in the Japan Football League, but they only won it in November 2008, as second place in the Regional League promotion series. In January 2009, they applied for J. League Associate Membership and their application was accepted at the J. League board meeting in February. In 2012, they won the JapanFootball League title and thus promotion to the J. League Division 2. Five years later they won promotion to the J1 League for the first time after finishing runners-up in the 2017 J2 League.
J. League: 2013–
In preparation for the club's first season in the J. League Division 2 the club hired local-born Takuya Takagi as their coach for the season. On 3 March 2013 V-Varen Nagasaki played in their first ever J. League Division 2 match against Fagiano Okayama at the Kanko Stadium in Okayama in which the club drew the match 1–1 with Kōichi Satō scoring the first J. League Division 2 goal for V-Varen Nagasaki in the 25th minute. The club then played their first home match in the J. League Division 2 on 10 March 2013 at the Nagasaki Athletic Stadium against former J. League champions Gamba Osaka in which V-Varen Nagasaki lost 3–1 in front of a huge crowd of 18,153.
Financial troubles
After facing dire financial difficulties, on 8 March 2017 the club was purchased by Japanet Holdings, the parent company of Japanese television shopping giant Japanet Takata Co.,Ltd., becoming a fully owned subsidiary. Japanet have invested significant sums into the club, securing promotion to the top tier of Japanese football and publishing plans to build a new football-specific stadium on the former site of Mitsubishi's Nagasaki shipbuilding operations, opening in 2023.
Club Name
The "V" in the club's name comes from the Portuguese word vitória as well as the Dutch wordvrede, while varen is the Dutch verb meaning 'to sail', relating to Nagasaki's heritage as port of call of Portuguese and Dutch traders during the sakoku period in the Tokugawa shogunate.
Takuya Takagi