JAPAN’S NATIONAL sport is in crisis after one of its top wrestlers was sacked last night for illegally gambling millions of yen on baseball with Yakuza gangsters.
A mobster allegedly tried to blackmail Kotomitsuki, who holds sumo’s second highest Ozeki ranking, for 3.5 million yen (€32,000) to keep quiet about his gambling activities.
Over two dozen wrestlers, officials and stable-masters are involved in the scandal, exposing the sport to further unwanted scrutiny as it struggles with declining audiences and allegations of bribery and match-fixing.
The sport’s ruling body, the Japan Sumo Association (JSA), last night also fired stable master Otake, who had borrowed up to 30 million yen from Kotomitsuki (34) after stacking up his own huge debts betting with the mob.
“We have caused considerable trouble, and I apologise from the bottom of my heart,” said outgoing JSA chairman Musashigawa, who has been suspended for failing to stop the betting.
The JSA hopes the first sacking of an active Ozeki will draw a line under the scandal ahead of the annual Nagoya tournament, which starts next weekend.
But state broadcaster NHK is threatening to pull the plug on coverage of the event after it reported that leading gangsters were given front-row seats at last year’s tournament, allegedly in return for gambling debt waivers.
NHK, which has exclusive rights to broadcast sumo, says the mobsters wanted the seats – which are directly in the TV cameras’ line of sight – to cheer up their associates doing time in prison.
Sumo’s associations with the underworld are well known, but the scale of the illicit betting, the involvement of Japan’s top broadcaster and the fact that the police became involved forced the JSA to act. Last month the police arrested a former wrestler with mob connections who had tried to extort 100 million yen from Kotomitsuki.
In recent years the ancient sport has weathered a series of damaging scandals, including suspensions of top wrestlers for drug-taking, and the beating to death of a young apprentice. Top draw, Asashoryu, abruptly quit the sport in February following a drunken fracas outside a nightclub in which he allegedly assaulted a man.
Fans interviewed yesterday said they are worried for sumo’s future. “It’s such a shame that this has happened to our sport,” one man from Nagoya told NHK. “I think there is more to come.”