Hokuseiho Out- Hakuho Demoted - Miyagino-beya Closing

[dingo 1,161]

A silly thought perhaps but were all Miyagino young rikishi trying to do as well as possible as fast as possible so that they could "escape" to a higher rank and not be Hokuseiho's target anymore? Surely he didn't attempt to bully any sekitori. 

[Akinomaki 39,856]

8 minutes ago, Tsuchinoninjin said:

Kensho money gets withheld to pay taxes.

This is a tiny part of what Hakuho amassed in kensho. The NSK keeps the rest to pay it back on retirement - and the reports were that that sum would have caused the NSK to go bankrupt, if they had to pay it at once. There were never any details leaked about the agreement with Hakuho in regard to the payments he was entitled to, including the other parts of retirement money, on which the rijikai has to decide.

[Gurowake 3,924]

32 minutes ago, Akinomaki said:

the reports were that that sum would have caused the NSK to go bankrupt, if they had to pay it at once.

Surely though they had been recording this as a liability though, right?  Any hit to their net assets would have already been visible on their financial reports, and they should have known that the day was coming that they would have to pay it out and make the funds available in liquid form.  I was under the impression that the NSK had a ton of money socked away in long-term investments, which they were drawing down in the time of Covid, but there was still a lot there.  I assume most of that would have been in marketable securities and not in anything that was potentially illiquid, so it really couldn't be a liquidity problem unless they had to liquidate it all and were only left with the Kokugikan as an asset.  I don't know what sort of equity they have in the building, but if they own it outright they presumably could get a mortgage for most of its value.  If that still wouldn't raise enough cash, then it would have been clear a long time ago that they were insolvent, not just now, but I'm fairly sure from the reports in the past that they had quite a lot of net assets, even if they burned through a lot of them in the last 4 years.

The point here is that I suspect that people who are saying the above thing probably don't have a clue about how finances really work.  

[Asashosakari 18,813]

1 hour ago, RabidJohn said:

I don't read any tabloids, do Reddit, X or any social media regarding sumo other than this forum.

It's based on the factual loss of revenue caused by the pandemic followed by the most successful yokozuna ever retiring, presumably owed more than any previous yokozuna. That is a presumption which may not be correct, but I don't think my belief that he was owed more than they were capable of paying at the time is incorrect. 

He was massively unpopular and unwelcome with a significant number of elders in the NSK, as evidenced by the unique contract they forced him to sign. It would have been so much easier to say no and pay him off. They didn't. Why? Because they couldn't, and seemingly still can't.

So I suppose your opinion is that Kakuryu, Kotoyuki, Ikioi, Toyohibiki, Asahisho and Chiyootori - who all retired +/- 6 months around Hakuho's intai, and naming just those sekitori who are now oyakata - are all waiting for their retirement money as well? If not, why would the Kyokai have saddled itself with an ongoing issue with Hakuho rather than work out deals with more cooperative members? The retirement benefits are primarily longevity-based, it doesn't take that many other veteran sekitori to equal the payment going to a long-time yokozuna.

[Gurowake 3,924]

11 minutes ago, Asashosakari said:

it doesn't take that many other veteran sekitori to equal the payment going to a long-time yokozuna.

If it's mostly (all?) money withheld from kensho, then I don't think that people like Kotoyuki, Asahisho, and Chiyootori really make much of a dent compared to Hakuho.

Edited February 23 by Gurowake

[Asashosakari 18,813]

30 minutes ago, Gurowake said:

If it's mostly (all?) money withheld from kensho, then I don't think that people like Kotoyuki, Asahisho, and Chiyootori really make much of a dent.  

That's the nonsensical tabloid part. The primary purpose of the 30,000 yen that are being withheld from each kensho is to cover the rikishi's income tax on the 30,000 yen that aren't, via the Kyokai handling it as part of their payroll tax scheme. I don't know what the highest tax bracket was during Hakuho's career, but right now it's 45% starting at 40,000,000 yen annual gross income (which any yokozuna exceeds just with his base salary).

Tabloids were pretending - or maybe they really didn't know any better - that Hakuho was entitled to receive another 30,000 yen each for a five-digit number of career kensho, putting him at half a billion yen or whatever just for that part of his retirement benefits. That's just not the case. The true post-tax amount left was almost certainly well under 100 million yen.

(It's arguable that Hakuho actually might have been entitled to nothing from that source at all, considering other social contributions will have been paid on the kensho values as well, not just income tax.)

Edited February 23 by Asashosakari

[Asashosakari 18,813]

1 hour ago, Gurowake said:

Surely though they had been recording this as a liability though, right?  Any hit to their net assets would have already been visible on their financial reports, and they should have known that the day was coming that they would have to pay it out and make the funds available in liquid form.  I was under the impression that the NSK had a ton of money socked away in long-term investments, which they were drawing down in the time of Covid, but there was still a lot there.

Pretty much that, yeah. The Kyokai's savings are still fine, if not anywhere near as high as they used to be pre-pandemic, and the notion that the Kyokai has long-term cashflow problems  making it impossible to pay out Hakuho or anybody else after 2+ years is just preposterous.

One notable thing semi-related to this whole discussion is that they shifted a lot of the reserves they had set aside for future retirements of current sekitori - that position on their balance sheet used to be equal to 100% of their estimated accrued obligations, which was (I'm too lazy to check) somewhere between 5 and 6 billion yen, and they reduced that to north of 1 billion. That looked pretty drastic when I saw it, but I doubt it makes any practical difference to their ability to actually cover those obligations. It's not like all 100-odd rikishi with sekitori experience are going to retire next year.

The accrued totals don't seem to change much year on year in any case, regardless of who has retired in any given accounting period. I daresay the impact of any one rikishi on the total is much less than some people think, even if that one rikishi is somebody with a career like Hakuho's.

[Akinomaki 39,856]

The NSK doesn't pay the taxes for the rikishi (other than withholding them from source income for the basic salary), the kensho deposit is in case one isn't able to pay surplus taxes, but Hakuho most likely was and did. The whole sum therefore is retirement money, just as the tabloids reported.

On 26/01/2015 at 09:18, Akinomaki said:

as reserve for surplus income tax the rikishi may be charged at the end of the fiscal year, and a pension fund.

Rikishi used to spend their money and then had not enough left for taxes.

Info on rikishi tax declarations: http://www.yonezu.net/column/1622.html - kensho are business income

The kensho deposit is kept under the name of the rikishi, so it doesn't figure under the NSK finances, neither in nor out. The rikishi get no interest for it, so the whole cash is available for the NSK free of charge till the rikishi retires.

Hakuho most likely collected more than all yokozuna and ozeki combined, who retired during his time as yokozuna. You can see the yearly results on the Nikkan banzuke for Hatsu, unfortunately only 2016 is available from the days of Hakuho's dominance https://web.archive.org/web/20160104190305/https://www.nikkansports.com/battle/sumo/data/sm-ranking.html

What should be somewhere visible in the finances is the special retirement money for y/o the rijikai decides upon

Edit: I posted some Nikkan money banzuke in the past: 2012 (only till Aki), 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

Edited February 25 by Akinomaki

[Kintamayama 44,375]

Danpatsushiki to be held in April, no Kokugikan as the 30 basho as a sekitori minimum was not reached. Only 12.

Edited February 24 by Kintamayama

[Chartorenji 235]

Feel like the Kensho stuff deserves its own different thread, as for now it's hard to connect it with anything until more comes out. 

[Kotomiyama 165]

10 hours ago, RabidJohn said:

Obviously this is immensely disappointing for me. I know ozumo to be a harsh and unforgiving lifestyle unsuitable for snowflakes, but the lines that should not be crossed are fairly well established now. Knowing but doing bugger all about it is staggeringly arrogant, IMO.

Exactly.

You can have a harsh lifestyle, with hard training and austere living conditions, while respecting others and keeping a healthy ambient in the Heya. Lines have been drawn for some years now and there is no going back... and I as a fan want it this way.

[RabidJohn 1,667]

3 hours ago, Asashosakari said:

So I suppose your opinion is that Kakuryu, Kotoyuki, Ikioi, Toyohibiki, Asahisho and Chiyootori - who all retired +/- 6 months around Hakuho's intai, and naming just those sekitori who are now oyakata - are all waiting for their retirement money as well? If not, why would the Kyokai have saddled itself with an ongoing issue with Hakuho rather than work out deals with more cooperative members? The retirement benefits are primarily longevity-based, it doesn't take that many other veteran sekitori to equal the payment going to a long-time yokozuna.

Your supposition is wrong.

I accept that my suppositions may be completely off the mark, too. I'm in the dark, same as the rest of us.

What I'm trying to make sense of is why the NSK let ex-Hakuho obtain a kabu and take over Miyagino-beya when he was deeply unpopular with a sizeable minority of elders. So unpopular they made him sign a contract about his behaviour (a first as far as I'm aware). And now, when he's clearly broken the contract and they could get rid of him, they haven't.

Something doesn't add up, and nothing you've added is making things any clearer.

Edited February 23 by RabidJohn

[Reonito 1,338]

17 minutes ago, RabidJohn said:

Your supposition is wrong.

I accept that my suppositions may be completely off the mark, too. I'm in the dark, same as the rest of us.

What I'm trying to make sense of is why the NSK let ex-Hakuho obtain a kabu and take over Miyagino-beya when he was deeply unpopular with a sizeable minority of elders. So unpopular they made him sign a contract about his behaviour (a first as far as I'm aware). And now, when he's clearly broken the contract and they could get rid of him, they haven't.

Something doesn't add up, and nothing you've added is making things any clearer.

Couldn't this be simply explained by the fact that this is seemingly a minority view, and that the majority sees the value in having him in the NSK and/or doesn't view anything he's done as (yet) rising to the level of pushing out an extremely successful yokozuna?

[Akinomaki 39,856]

One temporary channel that posts from the wide shows (usually gone in less than 3 days) posted several reports, 2 from today, one from yesterday:

it! (Fuji TV) today

Houdou Station (TV Asahi)

Edited February 23 by Akinomaki

[Tochinofuji 372]

5 hours ago, Akinomaki said:

Yakuza= violence groups in official terms - wearing a yakuza style kesho mawashi, like the tattoos of the yakuza, showing his intrinsic violence

Interesting theory. As someone with quite the love of tattoos and Japanese tattoo art in particular, it's always strange to me that even still there's this tie for some given how prevalent tattoos have become amongst "civilians" for lack of a better word (I do appreciate culturally in Japan getting a tattoo can be seen by many as buying into a violent lifestyle, or at the very least the rejection of conventional society). I was actually very pleased when Ishiura, for example, had kimono he designed with Gakkinx in a similar style, and don't think one could read anything into it about his personality other than he appreciated the art style. Maybe a Miyagino style trend, but hopefully one entirely divorced from antisocial behaviour. 

[Bunny 6]

43 minutes ago, RabidJohn said:

Your supposition is wrong.

I accept that my suppositions may be completely off the mark, too. I'm in the dark, same as the rest of us.

What I'm trying to make sense of is why the NSK let ex-Hakuho obtain a kabu and take over Miyagino-beya when he was deeply unpopular with a sizeable minority of elders. So unpopular they made him sign a contract about his behaviour (a first as far as I'm aware). And now, when he's clearly broken the contract and they could get rid of him, they haven't.

Something doesn't add up, and nothing you've added is making things any clearer.

Maybe being "Takanohana-ed" is a two step process?

Otherwise it appears arbitrary

[Benihana 1,901]

1 hour ago, Chartorenji said:

Feel like the Kensho stuff deserves its own different thread, as for now it's hard to connect it with anything until more comes out. 

I second this. There have been different threads regarding payment, mochikuyin, etc., which vanished into the back pages and are hard to find. And the information poured in here by  @Asashosakari, @Akinomaki and others, is highly fascinating, too. But this thread will suffer the same fate.

If someone could start a thread containing info about all the money related subjects and pin it to the top of the sumo information subforum, that would be very appreciated.

[Tigerboy1966 1,379]

Belatedly chipping in...

I have zero sympathy for Hakuho. If he had more involvement in the day-to-day stuff and actually lived at the stable we might never have got to this point.  He needs to prioritise.

As for Hokuseiho... well if a big, strong kid starts dicking around and bullying his classmates he needs to be slapped down immediately. Otherwise he thinks he's not doing anything so bad and the problem escalates. Slap your classmate... nothing happens, punch him... nothing happens, superglue his wallet... nothing happens, kick him in the nuts... nothing happens, blast him with a home-made flame-thrower... nothing happens... oh what? I'm fired! How'd that happen???

Edited February 23 by Tigerboy1966
ce

[dingo 1,161]

I find it hard to believe that most of the Kyokai is so opposed to Miyagino that they want to kick him out as soon as possible. They might be wary of him, considering they have no idea how Miyagino intends to wield his considerable fame and power gained in various circles inside and outside of sumo. So I tend to go for the simplest explanation and see it as what it says on the box: a punishment for this case and a warning to keep squeaky clean from now on. 

[Akinomaki 39,856]

The pics from today

o o

on the way to the rijikai

oo oo o

oo

return after receiving the sentence

oo ooo o

ooo o oo

apologies for the media

o o o ooo ooo oo   

 ooo

o o ooo o o o o o oooo

ooo o

farewell

ooooo

Edited February 25 by Akinomaki

[Asashosakari 18,813]

46 minutes ago, RabidJohn said:

Your supposition is wrong.

I accept that my suppositions may be completely off the mark, too. I'm in the dark, same as the rest of us.

What I'm trying to make sense of is why the NSK let ex-Hakuho obtain a kabu and take over Miyagino-beya when he was deeply unpopular with a sizeable minority of elders. So unpopular they made him sign a contract about his behaviour (a first as far as I'm aware). And now, when he's clearly broken the contract and they could get rid of him, they haven't.

Something doesn't add up, and nothing you've added is making things any clearer.

Based on how his oyakata career unfolded (kept away from any levers of real power for as long as possible - they made hapless Asashio a director over him!), I'm pretty sure Chiyonofuji was hated by his fellow Kyokai members to a greater degree than even you believe that Hakuho must be hated by his. And yet, a "Why didn't they just get rid of him?" question never comes up in discussions of his career. Why not? Because a) pretty much every fan will say that the Kyokai as a whole would have been worse off without Chiyonofuji on board, and b) the rest of the Kyokai clearly thought so, too.

Whatever unified face the Kyokai usually tries to present to the public, we're still talking about an organization made up of more than 100 men at the management level alone. There will be loads of people in there who can't mutually stand each other, but everybody understands it's a job and that trying to keep professional sumo going can't all be sunshine. And the flipside of the size of the organization is: It's hard to become so widely disliked that there's an actual consensus that your continued presence is a net negative. And it being Japan, it's even harder to reach the point where people will act on that consensus with public ramifications. Of all the oyakata whose careers have involuntarily ended in the last 20 years (and there have been quite a number), only two arguably reached the "we've got to get rid of this guy" point: Useless waste of space Kanechika who still survived for over a decade despite offering absolutely nothing to sumo, and Takanohana. And the latter even still had a sizable amount of supporters, but his presence just became too disruptive at too deep a level.

Nothing Hakuho has done as either active rikishi or junior oyakata comes anywhere close to the point where there might actually be a groundswell of oyakata support for canning him. This Hokuseiho debacle looks very bad for sumo, but I'm sure there's widespread backing for the notion that sending Hakuho out after him would just make things even worse. When it comes to its business, "the Kyokai" is almost always much more pragmatic than you and some others want to give credit for.

[Kaninoyama 1,694]

9 minutes ago, dingo said:

I find it hard to believe that most of the Kyokai is so opposed to Miyagino that they want to kick him out as soon as possible. They might be wary of him, considering they have no idea how Miyagino intends to wield his considerable fame and power gained in various circles inside and outside of sumo. So I tend to go for the simplest explanation and see it as what it says on the box: a punishment for this case and a warning to keep squeaky clean from now on. 

In one of the news reports that Akinomaki posted above, a sumo columnist commented that shutting down a heya is only on the table when the Oyakata himself does the bullying. So in this case, when the culprit was a deshi, the punishment fits the crime in the eyes of the Kyokai, and there isn't grounds at this point to hand Miyagino his walking papers. 

[Asashosakari 18,813]

35 minutes ago, Asashosakari said:

Nothing Hakuho has done as either active rikishi or junior oyakata comes anywhere close to the point where there might actually be a groundswell of oyakata support for canning him. This Hokuseiho debacle looks very bad for sumo, but I'm sure there's widespread backing for the notion that sending Hakuho out after him would just make things even worse. When it comes to its business, "the Kyokai" is almost always much more pragmatic than you and some others want to give credit for.

BTW, I put "the Kyokai" in scare quotes at the end because the pragmatism I claimed isn't an organizational philosophy - in fact, they would probably insist publicly that it's exactly the opposite - but the individual people that make up the organization are clearly no less pragmatic than their counterparts in most other lines of business. Throughout professional sumo's history, it's always been a tightrope act between "what are we supposed to do", "what do we want to do", and "what do we know we must do". A random enterprise can change its line of business, the Kyokai is stuck with sumo.

That's arguably also what killed Takanohana's ambitions - just too grand, too idealistic, and too dependent on everybody falling in line with his ideas. The Kyokai won't work as a dictatorship, not even a benevolent one. Of course it didn't help that he turned out to be a massive hypocrite with multiple instances of unsanctioned violence occurring under his own watch in Takanohana-beya all the while he tried to play himself up as the leader of a brighter, happier sumo future, but as we see with Hakuho just now, such incidents alone normally aren't enough grounds for the rest of the organization to turn its back on you.

Edited February 24 by Asashosakari

[Chartorenji 235]

I do wonder how much more Journalists are willing to take with a potential widespread bullying scandal. There is no way not every other stable is clean, and if I were to guess, many are covering up their own misdeeds/stuff that might not make for good press. Something to consider as while this is a huge story, only last year we had what 2 instances of bullying? Naruto Heya and Michinoku Heya?

[Gurowake 3,924]

3 hours ago, RabidJohn said:

What I'm trying to make sense of is why the NSK let ex-Hakuho obtain a kabu and take over Miyagino-beya when he was deeply unpopular with a sizeable minority of elders.

I didn't think they had much of a choice.  If he did it, he did it.  Do you think they have the power to boot someone from their share just because he's not LIKED?