A sumo gym chief who beat wrestlers with a golf club got a severe dressing down on Wednesday in the latest twist
cheap golf clubsto a year of scandal for the ancient Japanese sport.
Kasugano, 49, beat three young wrestlers for breaking a curfew and not wearing traditional kimono outside, local media reported.
''I went too far hitting them with a golf club,'' Kasugano said. ''I realise that and have told the lads I won't raise a fist to them again.''
In another embarrassing year for sumo, the roly-poly sport was pulled from television and banned after government pressure following a damaging match-fixing scandal.
Sumo officials had actually banned wrestlers from playing golf after holding
Callaway Diablo EDGE irons a first tournament last month since a sting operation led to 25 wrestlers and trainers being fired.
However, the Japan Sumo Association (JSA) failed to appreciate the irony with chairman Hanaregoma barking: ''Taking a golf club to them is way over the line.''
Lengthy charge sheets
Callaway RAZR X Tour Ironsleading to mass sackings and even arrests and convictions in gambling, drug use, gang crime and assault cases have plagued the sports in recent years.
The government warned that sumo's privileged position of enjoying special
tax breaks was at risk unless the sport, which dates back around 2,000 years, cleaned up its act.
Sumo had been flirting with a public relations disaster since Mongolian
Callaway Diablo forged irons firebrand Asashoryu became the sport's top dog and broke every rule in the book.
Swanning around in Hawaiian shirts and shorts, playing soccer while supposedly injured and brawling naked with rivals in communal bathrooms pushed the envelope.
Patience with him snapped in early 2010 and he was forced out of the sport after a drunken punch-up outside a Tokyo nightclub.
