The Japanese Olympic Committee and other national sports bodies will cooperate with the National Police Agency to remove any elements of organized crime groups in sports, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.
Based on information provided by the NPA and other sources, the Japan Sports Association, the Japanese Olympic Committee, the Japanese Para-Sports Association and the Japan Sports Agency (JSA) will determine whether senior officials of member sports organizations have connections with gangsters. With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics as an opportunity, they aim to realize and promote a "clean sports world."
The supervising organizations will examine each member organization from fiscal year 2020 based on the common guidelines "Governance Code for National Sport Federation Members" formulated by the JSA for the central sports organizations, which are the representative bodies for each sport. The guidelines were drawn up in response to scandals in the sports world, including power harassment.
The supervising bodies have been urging member organizations to include "development of compliance regulations" in their rules, and plan to revise the rules to include "have no ties to organized crime groups" as one of the criteria for screening.
According to sources, member organizations will submit lists of directors, auditors and councilors to each supervisory organization, which will then ask the NPA for cooperation. The NPA has already reached an agreement with related organizations to respond to inquiries through the information management system, conduct investigations if necessary, and provide information and advice. The supervising organizations are supposed to ask member organizations that have problems to make improvements.
According to the JSA, 49 of the 122 organizations subject to the screening are general corporations. Under the act on authorization of public interest incorporated associations and public interest incorporated foundations, public interest incorporated associations are strictly monitored for their involvement with organized crime groups.
However, as for general corporations, a sports official said; "Currently, it is difficult to determine [whether they have any ties with gangsters] by anything other than self-reporting."
In the summer of 2018, the then-chairman of the Japan Boxing Federation, a general incorporated association, admitted that he was associated with a former gang member, triggering a social uproar.
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