Sumo: Sumo association to set up match-fixing watchdog panel+

TOKYO, Feb. 14 Kyodo -
The Japan Sumo Association said on Monday it will form a watchdog panel
specifically to prevent the recurrence of match fixing to address the biggest
scandal in the history of the ancient sport.
Members of the watchdog panel, which will consist of five sumo coaches and
three people from outside the sumo world, will be selected at a later a date,
it was decided at an emergency board meeting at Ryogoku Kokugikan the same day.
A special investigative team looking into the recent match-fixing scandal that
has implicated 14 people, made its second report to the JSA board, but said it
had not yet uncovered all the facts.
Hence, the punishments for juryo wrestlers Chiyohakuho and Kiyoseumi, sumo
elder Takenawa and lower-division wrestler Enatsukasa, each of whom has either
confessed or been incriminated in rigging bouts, have been postponed.
The special investigative panel wrapped up a report on hearings of 78 wrestlers
who were in the juryo division or above since the 2009 Kyushu Grand Sumo
Tournament.
Shigeru Ito, who heads the panel and holds a special position at Waseda
University, said in a press conference following the JSA meeting, ''We did not
receive any suspicious answers from the 78 people questioned (aside from the 14
under investigation).''
Ito said the questioning of the 14 who have been implicated in match fixing
would continue, but that there are currently no further interviews planned for
the 78 questioned last week.
He said, however, that six people who answered a survey directed at JSA members
said that they had heard rumors of match fixing in the past. The panel plans to
question the unnamed six.
The JSA board also approved establishing a hotline for JSA members in order to
seek more information on match fixing.
==Kyodo
2011-02-14 23:45:53