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Tokyo. Japan’s traditional sport of sumo had already fallen on hard times from damaging scandals and declining popularity. Now, an even more sinister problem has been added to its list of woes: ties to the criminal underworld.

On Sunday, the Japan Sumo Association, the sport’s governing body, announced the firing of a top wrestler and a stable master ­­— a powerful coach who controls a cluster of wrestlers ­­— for betting on professional baseball games in a gambling ring run by organized crime.

Two other stable masters were demoted, and 18 other wrestlers were barred from competing in the next tournament.

This came after an apparently unrelated scandal two months ago over the sale of tickets for prized seats at the foot of the sport’s raised dirt ring to around 50 members of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest crime syndicate.

The seats allowed the gangsters, known as yakuza, to be clearly visible during live television broadcasts of the bouts, a brazen display that sumo experts said was aimed at cheering up an incarcerated syndicate boss watching from prison.

Facing a public outcry, the association has repeatedly warned that the sport, which dates back at least 1,300 years, must clean up or perish. On Sunday, a dozen hulking wrestlers, wearing traditional kimonos, bowed deeply in apology before flashing cameras.

Sumo had already been shaken in recent years by scandals over marijuana use, the fatal beating of a 17-year-old novice wrestler and media accusations of bout-rigging.

But the current scandals are widely seen as bigger than anything that came before because they involve such a large number of wrestlers, not to mention gangsters.

So how did the sport get to this position?

The scandals underscore the degree to which sumo, an insular, tradition-bound world long shielded from outside scrutiny by its special cultural status, has fallen out of step with changes in the rest of Japan.

Many Japanese were appalled to learn that members of the sport actually seemed to be increasing their ties to mobsters at a time when the nation has striven to distance itself from its once thriving underworld, which until recently was a tacitly accepted presence here.

Sumo experts and ex-wrestlers say the sport was driven into the arms of organized crime by cash problems caused by a decline in attendance and corporate sponsorship.

In short, critics say, sumo has proved to be yet another Japanese institution that is unwilling or unable to adapt to the changes brought by the nation’s economic decline.

“Sumo is one of those stubborn holdouts of Japan’s old-fashioned, closed ways,” said Takanobu Nakajima, a professor of business at Keio University in Tokyo, who has written a book about the sport.

Indeed, he and others say that sumo has clung to its old ways to an extent surprising even in change-adverse Japan.

They say this has been most evident in its inability to reverse its declining popularity, particularly among youths drawn to other entertainment, like soccer and online games.

The recent scandals have hurt the sport even more, driving away sponsors. The sumo association says annual income from sponsors and sales of tickets to its bimonthly tournaments dropped to about $110 million last year from about $150 million in 1999.

Sumo experts say that the sport, like Japan’s overall economy, became bloated during the economic heyday of the 1980s, and then failed to adapt to leaner times by downsizing.

The number of stables ­­— the semifeudal camps where wrestlers live and train ­­— is now 51, twice as many as in 1970. Yet the number of wrestlers has declined in the last two decades to fewer than 700 from 1,000, the experts say.

Meanwhile, Japan’s government broadcaster NHK will not televise a sumo tournament this month because of scandals linked to organized crime, the first time it has cancelled the broadcast in more than 50 years, reports said on Tuesday.


NYT, AFP