Inside Shooto’s scandal
Recently, former Shooto world champion Noboru Asahi has led the charge in shaking up the Shooto regime. A recent petition…
Recently, former Shooto world champion Noboru Asahi has led the charge in shaking up the Shooto regime. A recent petition from Asahi — signed and supported by various Shooto fighters and gym leaders — inquires into the financial operations of the Japanese Shooto Association, the International Shooto Commission and the role of one of its principal members, Taro Wakabayashi, in those affairs. According to Asahi, the necessity of this petition arose over concerns of Wakabayashi’s unofficial autocratic control over the association and its non-public finances.
The petition’s chief allegation is financial fraud on Wakabayashi’s part. Until January, Wakabayashi’s official position in the Shooto Association was as chairman for the spread of the [Shooto] amateur system. It is not an executive position by design, nor a position designed to handle Shooto’s finances. However, Shooto gym leaders that have participated in association meetings distinguish Wakabayashi as being in charge of all facets of Shooto’s operations, including the management of Shooto’s money.
In attempting to justify the conversion of association funds into private property, Wakabayashi shut out the voices of those around him, claimed Shooting Gym Hakkei’s Yoshihiko Watanabe. We have requested, mainly through Asahi, that Wakabayashi explain these matters to us, but Wakabayashi has remained silent from beginning to end. We’ve thus dismissed him from the association.
One of his close friends, Shooto legend and former 154-pound world champion Yuki Nakai, has continued to speak on Wakabayashi’s behalf.
First of all, the assumption that Wakabayashi was diverting funds for his personal use is still currently unproven, Nakai said.
According to Nakai, based upon consultation with Japan’s national tax office, the Japanese Shooto Association is not a formal and legally recognized corporate body by the Japanese government. As a result, it has no legally recognized bylaws or corporate statutes, thus leaving financial liability and rights to its nominal leader. By default, that leader for the past decade has been Wakabayashi, his title as amateur Shooto chief notwithstanding.
Thus, whether or not Wakabayashi appropriated funds from Shooto earnings, Nakai says the national tax office is only concerned with the proper reporting of revenue such that it can collect its taxes, regardless of who claims that revenue.
The association members were awful, and they were unable to clearly show how the money flowed. It was also terrible that the association head [Wakabayashi] used the money without clearly showing how or why he did it, said former Shooto 168-pound world champion Sakura.
By our estimates, Shooto should profit at least 2,000,000 yen ($24,000) a year. There’s a lot of money that cannot be accounted for since a lot of it comes in as cash. Where did it all go? Asahi asked.
Nobody knows where the money went, and nobody is saying anything. Wakabayashi isn’t standing up for himself, and the tax office has no idea [about it] because no one is sure if he paid taxes, said Enson Inoue, another former Shooto world champion.
In the midst of this turmoil, the JSA has had its cabinet dissolved, making way for a newly elected association to take effect in April. According to Asahi, the creation of the new association will serve as the first time members will be voted in by the Shooto community, rather than arbitrarily selected and appointed by Wakabayashi.
Transparency is the most important thing to the people that signed this petition, said Asahi. I’ve seen and been involved in other sports, and transparency and accurate accounting are absolutely integral to operation. If everything remains as vague as it has been over the years, Shooto cannot survive. We’re doing this for the benefit of Shooto’s future.