Sumo Tournament Canceled over 'Match-Fixing'

Sports | February 6, 2011, Sunday // 16:27|  views

Picture dated 09 April 2010 of Sumo wrestlers standing on the ring for the 'Honozumo', a ceremonial sumo tournament at the Yasukuni Shrine precincts, in Tokyo, Japan. Photo by EPA/BGNES

The Japan Sumo Association (JSA) has cancelled next month's grand tournament over allegations that prominent bouts were fixed via text messages.

Police are investigating allegations of match fixing in which 13 senior wrestlers have been implicated, but their names have not been disclosed.

Earlier in the month bowing in apology, the chairman of the Japan Sumo Association, Hanaregoma, confirmed that allegations of match-fixing had been made.

He said text messages found on mobile phones suggested that 13 senior wrestlers were implicated.

One reportedly went into detail of how he would attack and the other would fall, in exchange for hundreds of thousands of yen (100,000 yen equals USD1227).

The messages came to light after police confiscated phones last year during an investigation into illegal gambling on baseball games by wrestlers using gangster middlemen.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has called the match-fixing scandal a betrayal of the people, since sumo has its origins in religious rites and wrestlers are expected to observe a strict code of behaviour.

Bulgarian sumo star Kotooshu was accused in October 2008 of fixing bouts as a scandal tainting the image of Japan's ancient sport intensified.

Kotooshu, who is the first European to win a tournament and has the rank of ozeki in Japan, the second highest in the sumo, flatly denied the allegations.

"We are all training so hard. I am saddened by this. These are all lies," Kotooshu told reporters.

The accusations came from Russian Soslan Gagloev, 20, who was expelled from the sumo world in August for marijuana possession and has since threatened to tell all about "evil" in the 2,000-year-old sport.

Kotooshu, whose real name is Kaloyan Mahlyanov, approached Gagloev three times this year, offering to pay money to win fights and threatening the Russian with a dangerous form of training if he refused, the story said.

Kotooshu has been a popular figure in both Bulgaria and Japan, with some calling him sumo's David Beckham for his looks. Many people give him credit for the popularisation of Bulgaria in Japan.

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Tags: Kotooshu, fixing, match, Kaloyan Mahlyanov, Association, sumo, Japan, Naoto Kan, Prime Minister, Japanese, Bulgaria, Bulgarian

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