EDITORIAL: Sumo reform should start with name-use licenses

The Japan Sumo Association (JSA) must not think that the bout-rigging scandal that has rocked the sumo world has now blown over.

The scandal-plagued association has announced the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament will be held in its normal form in July.

The summer tournament in May was held as a special event with free admission for spectators after the association announced measures to prevent match-fixing. After that tournament went without a hitch, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology gave the green light to the association's decision to hold the first formal grand tournament since the scandal broke in February. The spring tournament in March was canceled.

But the professional sumo community doesn't have the luxury of taking a rest.

As it ordered the sumo governing body to submit a report on its responses to the scandal, the sports ministry strongly urged the organization to present a timetable for the reform of the ancient sport.

That's because at the root of the string of scandals that have hit the sport, which also include revelations of illegal gambling on professional baseball games, are structural problems with the association and the community.

Complacent with the idea that its status is secured by the sumo culture and the sport's long tradition, the association has been neglecting to push through necessary reforms, perpetuating the closed nature of the sumo community.

In particular, it is impossible for the association to avoid reforming the system of "toshiyori myoseki," or sumo coach's name-use licenses, if it is to clean up the sport. These licenses are traded at high prices and treated as personal assets.

The toshiyori myoseki, literally "elder names" and also called "oyakatakabu" (stable master stocks), are the licensed names retired sumo wrestlers are required to obtain to become an oyakata (stable master) or senior member of the association.

Except for the special name stocks awarded to retiring great yokozuna limited to their own use, there are only 105 of these names, which guarantee post-retirement income and status for wrestlers. They have therefore been traded for money.

Oyakata stocks changed hands at about 10 million yen in the 1970s. But their prices jumped to the tune of hundreds of millions of yen in the 1980s. Some retiring wrestlers borrowed money to buy a stock.

In 1996, stable master Futagoyama, former ozeki Takanohana, was found by the tax authority to have failed to declare the money he spent for purchasing a name stock. The revelations showed that the stock had been bought for about 300 million yen.

The problem with the system is that these licenses to qualify as an oyakata who trains and educates young wrestlers can be bought with money instead of being awarded to retiring wrestlers on the basis of their ability to serve as instructors or contribute to the association. It is hard to win public support for this system, especially when the association is seeking to become a new public-interest corporation.

But the sumo world has been treating the system as a sacred cow.

The 1996 taxation scandal prompted then JSA Chairman Sakaigawa (former yokozuna Sadanoyama) to propose a ban on trading toshiyori myoseki and putting the name-use licenses under the association's management.

But his reform initiative fell through in the face of opposition from stable masters.

The reform timetable submitted by the association to the ministry contains similar measures to overhaul the system.

But the association didn't hold any serious debate on the issue and only included the proposals in the plan to get permission to hold the July tournament in Nagoya.

There can be no progress on this issue as long as it is left to discussions among stable masters bent on protecting their vested interests.

The issue of toshiyori myoseki was singled out as the top priority for sumo reform in the report of an independent committee of outside experts set up to help improve the association's "governance."

The association should get outsiders actively involved in the debate on this crucial topic.

The question facing the association is what kind of future it envisions for the sport. We hope the association will put the issue in the ring of debate and tackle it head-on.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 5