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The 2,000-year-old sport of sumo is facing calls to radically reform its ancient ways after scandals ranging from drugs to violence to alleged match-fixing.
Kitanoumi, a legendary grand champion, stepped down Monday as head of the Japan Sumo Association after three Russian wrestlers, one who trained in his stable, tested positive for smoking marijuana.
Japanese purists also have a distaste for top current grand champion Asashoryu, a Mongolian derided as too brash for a sport whose athletes are supposed to be nearly ascetic role models.
One ruling-party lawmaker went so far as to call for a complete ban on foreigners in the cloistered sport, considered by many Japanese to be more of a spiritual set of rituals than a competition.
“The latest incident again taught us that it is difficult for those who do not hold the spirit of Japanese people to be bearers of the Japanese culture,” said Kenshiro Matsunami, a former wrestler and one-time vice education and sports minister.
“The sumo association learned the lessons from the frequent troubles caused by foreign wrestlers, including drug problems and the Asashoryu issue,” he wrote in the Yomiuri Shimbun.
Asashoryu was suspended for two tournaments last year for skipping a charity tournament when he went back to Mongolia.
He is set to testify in court next month in a libel suit against a magazine that accused the grand champion of fixing bouts.
But the sumo establishment faces a dilemma.
Athletically gifted foreigners have succeeded in sumo — both sitting grand champions are Mongolians — while the sport is losing its popularity among Japanese children.
Meanwhile, empty seats are growing at sumo arenas and stables have trouble recruiting young people into the gruelling training.
The sport’s image suffered immensely last year when a stablemaster was arrested for the death of an apprentice, whose superiors hit him with a beer bottle and baseball bats as part of training.
The new sumo chief, Musashigawa, said he would take a no-nonsense approach to discipline and floated the idea of a one-year education programme for foreign wrestlers.
“We have to let out all the ills of sumo. I will be very strict about this,” Musashigawa told reporters.
But Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, a self-professed sumo fan, suggested that outsiders should take charge of the sport, whose chiefs have almost always risen through the ranks.
Machimura cited the example of Carlos Ghosn, who brought Nissan Motor Co. from near bankruptcy to profit after taking over in 1999 as the clannish Japanese auto industry’s first foreign chief executive.
“Do you have to be a former sumo wrestler to be an officer of the association? I think that should change,” said Machimura, the government’s spokesman.
The veteran politician said he considered becoming a sumo wrestler as a child, but regretted the sport’s image was on the wane.
“Sumo wrestlers must behave like they should and realise that they are heroes to be admired,” Machimura said.
Kitanoumi was a phenomenal star in the 1970s, apparently making it more difficult for Sumo Association members to raise criticism.
Last year he confiscated the media pass of a veteran sumo commentator for a comment that Kitanoumi believed was critical of the association.
He later returned the pass after loud media and public outrage.
“Had he dealt with various problems by realising their seriousness, the sumo world could have avoided the cold shoulder it is now getting from the public,” a Mainichi Shimbun editorial said
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