Japan football official sentenced for viewing child abuse images on plane

A senior official of the Japan Football Association (JFA) has been handed a suspended jail term of 18 months in France after he was caught looking at images that show child sex abuse while on a plane, the organisation said on Tuesday.

Technical director Masanaga Kageyama was detained last week during a stopover at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, French newspaper Le Parisien reported, adding that he later admitted to viewing the images, saying he was not aware it was illegal in France.

He was believed to have been headed for the Under-20 World Cup in Chile.

The JFA said his contract would be terminated with immediate effect, adding that the incident was “unacceptable to the football world”.

The court prosecutor’s office told news agency AFP that the flight crew had raised the alarm after they spotted Kageyama looking at the pornographic images on the plane.

He had been using his laptop in a business class cabin of an Air France flight, and when confronted he had claimed that the photos were “art” and AI-generated, Le Parisien reported.

On Monday, the court sentenced the 58-year-old to a suspended jail term and a fine of 5,000 euros ($5,800; £4,300) – along with a 10-year ban on working with minors or returning to France, AFP reported.

In a statement on Tuesday, the JFA apologised for the “trouble” the incident had caused.

“This incident is unacceptable to the football world,” JFA Chairman Tsuneyasu Miyamoto said. “Although we have been working on this issue, we will use this incident as an opportunity to reexamine the governance and compliance system of the football world and to thoroughly strengthen and improve it.”

Kageyama is a former professional footballer who retired in 1996 before becoming a staff member to Japanese football teams. He also did stints managing teams in Macau and Singapore.