Editorial Standards

Every factual claim traces back to a primary source: the JFA, FIFA, the AFC, a club, the player or coach directly, or the match itself. If we cannot trace it, we do not print it as fact.

We check that a source's date actually covers the claim. A quote from July cannot confirm a transfer that happens in August. When the timeline does not line up, we treat the story as still open.

We link out to those sources so you can read them yourself. We would rather send you to the original than ask you to take our word for it.

You will see one of two labels on our news. They are a promise about how sure we are.

• Confirmed

  Announced by an official party, the JFA, the club, or the competition, or something we can verify directly, like a fixture or a final score. This is settled.

• Reported

  Credible journalism that is not official yet. We name the outlet, and the word "reported" or "reportedly" travels in the headline itself, never buried in the small print.

We do not launder a rumor into a fact. And if a reported story falls apart, we let the news be the news. We do not rewrite history to pretend we knew all along.

We never host or reproduce match footage. When there is an official highlight, we embed the official YouTube video or link to it. We do not rip, download, or re-host broadcasters' clips.

We do not lift long passages from other outlets. A short quote, clearly attributed, with a link to the original, is where we stop.

Chants are living supporter culture, so we treat them with care. Supporters' own terrace chants are printed with romaji and credit, as documentation of that culture. Commercially released songs are never reproduced.

A credit is not the same as permission. On this site we use only three kinds of images: photos released under a Creative Commons license (for example from Wikimedia Commons, with the photographer and license credited), photos we took ourselves, or our own samurai mark.

We do not use agency photos from Getty or AP, club or broadcaster media, or broadcast screenshots on the site. On our Instagram, a commentary or meme post may use a broadcast still, always credited to the broadcaster and never presented as our own.

A lot of what we cover has a shelf life: streaming prices, ticket windows, TV rights that are not announced yet. We date-stamp those claims ("as of" a given month) so you know how fresh they are, and we track the ones that will expire so we can fix them when the real answer lands.

If you spot something out of date, tell us. You are one of our best early-warning systems.

One person running a project this size will still get things wrong. When we do, we correct the page and say what changed. We do not quietly delete a story and act like it never ran.

Found an error? Email hello@nipponbluenation.com or message @nipponbluenation. We would rather hear it from you than leave it wrong.

We are independent. Nippon Blue Nation is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the JFA, any official supporter group, broadcaster, or governing body. Nobody pays us to take a position.

No display ads. No paywalls. No clickbait. Some gear links may earn us a small commission, always disclosed, and it never steers what we recommend. We use privacy-focused, cookieless analytics to understand aggregate usage, and we do not use analytics to identify individual visitors.