Kondo Seiichi of the Sega Sammy Phoenix has retired as a player on the team and is now the team’s new manager.
On May 25, the Sega Sammy Phoenix announced that Kondo Seiichi would be stepping down as a player.
In his retirement news release, Kondo stated that over the course of the M-League seasons, he was unable to play as well as he would have liked and chose not to continue because he did not see it improving. Even when the Sega Sammy Holdings company requested that he stay, Kondo explained the situation and the team understood.
At around the same time, it was announced that team manager Yoshino Shinichi would be stepping down as team manager and would be replaced by Kondo.
In the manager news release, Kondo stated that he initially declined the manager position as well, but the improved contract conditions changed his mind and the he will help lead the team to victory.
Kondo Seiichi was the the Sega Sammy Phoenix’s 2nd-round pick in the inaugural M-League Draft in 2018. In the 2019-20 season, he had the third-highest total score in the regular season and won the 4th-place avoidance award. With his help, the team finished 2nd place in the finals that year. The team was able to get another 2nd place finish with his help in the 2021-22 season.
There were so many people looking at the news that their server crashed and the team had to post a screenshot of the news releases on Twitter.
On the same day, the team also announced that Uotani Yuumi, Kayamori Sayaka and Tojo Rio would renew their contracts for the 2023-24 season.
With the vacancy in the Sega Sammy Phoenix roster, the Sega Sammy Phoenix will need to draft one player in the upcoming M-League draft. Due to the mixed gender team rule established in the 2019-20 season, the team must pick a male player since their other three players are female.
The M-League Watch team would like to wish Kondo Seiichi good luck in his new position.
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