OSAKA -- Japan Amateur Boxing Federation (JABF) President Akira Yamane admitted in an interview with the Mainichi Shimbun here he had been a friend of more than 50 years with a former head of a gang group affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi organized crime syndicate.
Yamane, 78, was named in a complaint filed with the Japan Sports Agency by 333 people connected with amateur boxing that raised allegations of subsidy misappropriation and intervention in match decisions. In the interview, however, Yamane denied most of these allegations.
"The federation did nothing wrong. I am not thinking about whether I should resign or not," he said, emphasizing he has no intention of stepping down as JABF chief.
Yamane's relationship with the former gang boss, 81, was earlier reported by the Mainichi Shimbun based on the latter's testimony. According to Yamane, he and the former gang boss came to know each other when the boxing chief was around 19. He had gotten into a fight with six people in Osaka, and someone who intervened to settle the fight introduced Yamane to the ex-gang boss. Their relationship continued after Yamane became a board member of the JABF in 1991, but Yamane said he "terminated the relationship about six years ago."
The ex-gang boss retired from the post in June 2007. Yamane denied the man had been involved in boxing matches. "He wanted to have a hand in them but I didn't let him," Yamane said.
According to Yamane, the man summoned a woman working at a restaurant run by the boxing chief's wife at around 1 a.m. on Aug. 2 and told her, "Tell chairman Yamane I will reveal his past if he doesn't quit within three days." Yamane commented, "It was intimidation, and I took procedures to submit a complaint (to authorities)."
Under the Japan Sport Association's ethics guidelines revised in November 2016, member groups are required to introduce written rules to ban their senior officials and others concerned from relationships with antisocial groups including organized crime syndicates and punish violators.
"It is never acceptable for any sports organizations or people associated with such bodies to have any exchange with antisocial groups," a senior association official said.
(Japanese original by Tetsuji Kishi, Osaka Sports News Department)
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180806/p2a/00m/0na/008000c
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