is a Japanese professional football club based in Hiratsuka, in the west of Kanagawa Prefecture, part of the Greater Tokyo Area. The club will play in the J2 League, the second tier of football in the country as of the season 2026–27, after relegated from J1 League, with three matches remaining. Their home stadium is Hiratsuka Athletics Stadium. Shonan refers to a coastal area along Sagami Bay that includes Hiratsuka. Bellmare is a portmanteau of the Italian words bello and mare, meaning "beautiful sea".
History
Early years as corporate team (1968–1992) The club was founded in 1968 as "Towa Real Estate SC" in Nasu, Tochigi. They were promoted to the Japan Soccer League (JSL) Division 1 in 1972. In 1975 they changed their name to "Fujita Kogyo SC" when Towa Estate Development gave up the ownership to their parent company Fujita Industries, which moved the club headquarters to Tokyo and their training ground to Hiratsuka one year later in 1976.
They won the JSL three times (including two doubles with the Emperor's Cup) between 1977 and 1981. They were nevertheless relegated to the JSL's Division 2 in 1990. Although they won the last JSL Division 2 season in 1991–92, the professionalization and formation of the J.League meant they did not meet the new top flight league's criteria and the runners-up, Kashima Antlers (formerly Sumitomo), were promoted instead.
1993: JFL In 1993, they adopted the new name "Bellmare Hiratsuka". Their application to the J.League Associate membership was accepted. They played in the former Japan Football League Division 1 and won the league championship. After Hiratsuka City Council committed to finance the refurbishment of the Hiratsuka Stadium to meet the J.League requirements, J.League accepted the club.
1994–1997: Golden era
The club was forced to change their name to Bellmare Hiratsuka because J.League required the participants to designate only one city or town as their hometown and include its name in the club names at that time. The club initially struggled to cope with the J.League opponents and finished 11th out of 12 in the first stage of the 1994 season. However, they came back in the second stage and finished 2nd. With this momentum, the club won the 1994–1995 Emperor's Cup. This title qualified Bellmare for the 1995–96 Asian Cup Winners' Cup, which they won by beating Iraq's Al Talaba in the final. Hidetoshi Nakata joined the team in 1995 and they also successfully recruited Brazilian-born Wagner Lopes and influential Korean international Hong Myung-bo. This is arguably the most successful period of the club.
1998–1999: Difficult period Four Bellmare players were selected for the 1998 FIFA World Cup. They were Nakata, Lopes, Hong (for South Korea) and a goalkeeper Nobuyuki Kojima. However, as Nakata left for Italian club Perugia just after the World Cup, the club's fortune started to decline. The main sponsor Fujita decided to discontinue the financial support in 1999 due to their own financial difficulties. It forced the club to release some highly paid players including Lopes, Hong and Kojima. They finished bottom of J1 in 1999 and were relegated to J2.
2000–2009: J2 League The club made a new start. The ownership was transferred to a community-owned organisation. They also changed their name to Shonan Bellmare as J.League allowed them to enlarge their designated hometowns to include several cities and towns surrounding Hiratsuka. The club's performance on the pitch has not been strong and they have not been serious contenders for the promotion to J1 so far.
A J1 comeback in 2010, if they are able to achieve promotion, will be the first without Fujita as their sponsor. Although for a time they refused to consider their history as the championship-winning Fujita corporate team in their current history, this year they celebrated the club's 40-year anniversary in 2009 as deduced from the badge in their Web site.
On 5 December 2009, Shonan returned to J1 as third-place finishers in 2009 seasons.
2010–2025: Return to J1 League The club returned to the J1 in 2010, but injured one after another and J2 was relegated after leaving four games. In the end, he won 21 consecutive league games. It was the worst record of J1 at that time. After that, the team will be repeatedly demoted to J2 and promoted to J1.
In recent years, the team has been steadily improving. In 2014, the team made good progress in the J2, winning 14 consecutive games from the opening. The team was defeated by Ehime FC in the 15th round, but after that they lost 21 battles. J1 automatic promotion is confirmed. As a result, he won the J2 with 31 wins, 8 draws, 3 losses and 101 points in the 2014 season. In 2016, in the J1, Shonan Bellmare was the final result in 8th place, and it was the first time for J1 to remain in history. In addition, at the EAFF E-1 Football Championship 2015 held in August, Wataru Endo, who was on the team at the time, participated as a representative of Japan. In 2018, won the J.League Cup. It was the first time for Shonan Bellmare to win three major titles since winning the 74th Emperor's Cup in the Bellmare Hiratsuka.
On the operational side, there was some report that the club fell into excess debt of more than 100 million yen in February 2012, and in the worst case the club itself could be dissolved (the actual amount of excess debt was 82.68 million yen). However, the debt insolvency was resolved by two capital increases. In April 2018, SANEI ARCHITECTURE PLANNING, which was the largest shareholder of Shonan Bellmare, established "Merudia RIZAP Shonan Sports Partners" in collaboration with RIZAP GROUP. The new company acquired a 50% stake in Shonan Bellmare. RIZAP GROUP intends to invest 1 billion yen in Bellmare over the next three years.
Rivalries Historically the Shonan area was part of a pre-modern province, Sagami Province, whereas Yokohama and Kawasaki were part of Musashi Province, hence Bellmare's intraprefectural rivalries with Yokohama F. Marinos, Yokohama FC and Kawasaki Frontale are based on the hard-working port cities of South Musashi as opposed to the more laid-back attitude of Sagami.
Affiliated clubs
The following clubs are currently affiliated with Shonan Bellmare: Boeung Ket (2022–2026) Sudeva Delhi (2022–2026) Nongbua Pitchaya (2022–2026) Wuhan Three Towns (2022–2030) FC Chanthabouly (2022–2028) Kelantan Darul Naim (2022–2030) Inter Milan (2024–2038) SS Lazio (2024–2038) Borussia Dortmund (2024–2038)
Former
Davao Aguilas (2022–2024) ASIOP (2022–2025) Wolverhampton Wanderers (2024–2025)
Players
First-team squad .
Out on loan
Club officials Role Name Manager Satoshi Yamaguchi Assistant manager Yoshihiro Natsuka Masahiro Koga Yoshihiro Yatsukawa Coach assistant Taiga Soeda Goalkeeper coach Takeaki Yuhara Analyst Masayuki Hirakawa Physical coach Kazutaka Takahashi Conditioning coach Yuta Iguchi Chief team doctor Eiichi Suzuki Team doctor Hirofumi Katsutani Makoto Takahashi Medical group chief trainer Hisayoshi Kojima Athletic trainer Nobuhide Kurihara Takahiro Yoshikawa Physiotherapist Shusuke Shimada Shigeyuki Shimizu Interpreter Kim Fan-ju Tiago Higa Competent Keita Mikami Side affairs Hiroto Araki Takahito Hiraga Hiroto Tanaka
Managerial history Manager Nationality TenureStart FinishYukio Shimomura 1 February 1972 31 January 1979Yoshinobu Ishii 1 January 1975 31 December 1980Tsutomu Nakamura 1 February 1981 31 January 1985Hidemitsu Hanaoka 1 February 1985 30 June 1988Yoshinobu Ishii 1 January 1988 31 December 1990Mitsuru Komaeda 1 July 1990 27 November 1995Shigeharu Ueki 28 November 1995 31 January 1996Toninho Moura 1 February 1996 19 September 1996Shigeharu Ueki 20 September 1996 31 January 1999Eiji Ueda 1 February 1999 30 June 1999Mitsuru Komaeda 1 July 1999 31 January 2000Hisashi Katō 1 February 2000 31 January 2001Kōji Tanaka 1 February 2001 30 November 2002Ajam Boujarari Mohammed 1 February 2003 15 May 2003Matsuichi Yamada 16 May 2003 14 July 2004Tatsuya Mochizuki 15 July 2004 13 September 2004Eiji Ueda 15 September 2004 5 June 2006Masaaki Kanno 5 June 2006 31 January 2009Yasuharu Sorimachi 1 February 2009 31 January 2012Cho Kwi-jae 1 February 2012 8 October 2019Kenji Takahashi 13 August 2019 9 October 2019Bin Ukishima 10 October 2019 31 August 2021Satoshi Yamaguchi 1 September 2021 Current
Record as J.League member ChampionsRunners-upThird placePromotedRelegated League J.League Cup Emperor'sCup AsiaSeason Div. Teams Pos. P W (OTW/PKW) D L (OTL/PKL) F A GD PtsAttendance/GBellmare Hiratsuka1994J1 12 5th 44 23 21 75 80 –5 17,836 First round Winners 199514 11th 52 21 29 (/2) 94 102 –8 65 16,111 Second round CWC Winners199616 11th 30 12 18 (/0) 47 58 –11 36 10,483 Semi-finals Quarter-finals CWC Quarter-finals199717 8th 32 14 12 (/1) 55 52 3 49 7,841 Group stage Quarter-finals Did not qualify Did not qualify199818 11th 34 12 (2/2) 17 (1/0) 53 66 –13 42 10,158 Group stage Round of 16199916 16th 30 4 (0/-) 1 22 (3/0) 30 72 –42 13 7,388 First round Third roundShonan Bellmare2000J2 11 8th 40 12 (3/0) 1 17 (7/) 59 71 –12 43 4,968 First round Third round Did not qualifyDid not qualify200112 8th 44 16 (4/) 4 18 (2/0) 64 61 3 60 4,112 First round Second round200212 5th 44 16 16 12 46 46 3 64 4,551 Not eligible Round of 16200312 10th 44 11 11 22 33 53 –20 44 4,731 Round of 16200412 10th 44 7 15 22 39 64 –25 36 4,691 Round of 16200512 7th 44 13 15 16 46 59 –13 54 5,746 Third round200613 11th 48 13 10 25 61 87 –26 49 5,365 4th round200713 6th 48 23 8 17 72 55 17 77 4,677 4th round200815 5th 42 19 8 15 68 48 20 65 5,994 Third round200918 3rd 51 29 11 11 84 52 32 98 7,273 Second round2010J1 1818th 34 3 7 24 31 82 –51 16 11,095 Group stage Third round2011J2 20 14th 38 12 10 16 46 48 –2 466,943 Not eligible Quarter-finals201222 2nd 42 20 15 7 66 43 23 75 6,852 Third round2013J1 18 16th 34 6 7 21 34 62 –28 259,911 Group stage Third round2014J2 22 1st 42 31 8 3 86 25 61 101 8,478 Not eligibleThird round2015J1 18 8th 34 13 9 12 40 44 –4 48 12,208 Group stage Third round201618 17th 34 7 6 21 30 56 –26 27 11,530 Group stage Quarter-finals2017J2 22 1st 42 24 11 7 58 36 22 83 8,454 Not eligible Third round2018J1 18 13th 34 10 11 13 38 43 –5 41 12,120 Winners Round of 16201918 16th 34 10 6 18 40 63 –23 36 12,848 Group stage Second round2020 †18 18th 34 6 9 19 29 48 –19 27 4,467 Group stage Did not qualify2021 †20 16th 38 7 16 15 36 41 –5 37 4,850 Play-off stage Round of 16202218 12th 34 10 11 13 31 39 –8 41 9,228 Play-off stage Third round202318 15th 34 8 10 16 40 56 –16 34 13,161 Group stage Quarter-finals202420 15th 38 12 9 17 53 58 –5 45 11,315 Second round Round of 16202520 19th 38 8 8 22 36 63 –27 32 11,426 Quarter-finals Third round2026J2 40 12th 18 N/A N/A2026–2720 TBD 38 TBD TBD Key
Honours As Towa / Fujita (until 1992); Bellmare Hiratsuka (1993–1999) and Shonan Bellmare (2000–present) +Shonan Bellmare honoursCompetition No. YearsKanto Soccer League11971All Japan Senior Football Championship11971JSL Cup11973Emperor's Cup31977, 1979, 1994Japan Soccer League Division 131977, 1979, 1981Japanese Super Cup21978, 1982Japan Soccer League Division 211991–92Japan Football League Division 111993Asian Cup Winners' Cup11995J2 League22014, 2017BTV Cup12016J.League Cup12018
League history
Kanto Football League: 1970–71 Division 1 (Japan Soccer League Div. 1): 1972–89 (1972–74 as Towa Real Estate Development; 1975–89 as Fujita Industries) Division 2 (Japan Soccer League Div. 2): 1990–91 (as Fujita Industries) Division 2 (Japan Football League (former) Div. 1): 1992–93 (as Fujita Industries) Division 1 (J.League Div. 1): 1994–99 (as Bellmare Hiratsuka) Division 2 (J.League Div. 2): 2000–09 (as Shonan Bellmare) Division 1 (J.League Div. 1): 2010 Division 2 (J.League Div. 2): 2011–12 Division 1 (J.League Div. 1): 2013 Division 2 (J.League Div. 2): 2014 Division 1 (J1 League): 2015–16 Division 2 (J2 League): 2017 Division 1 (J1 League): 2018–2025 Division 2 (J2 League): 2026-