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The Japanese sport of sumo wrestling must be dramatically restructured in order to cut its links with the underworld and repair its battered reputation, one leading commentator said this week.

Champion wrestler Kotomitsuki was banned from the ancient sport after a probe into an illegal betting racket with reported ties to local gangsters.

Sumo has stumbled from one crisis to another in recent years and public broadcaster NHK cancelled live coverage for the first time since 1953 earlier this month.

Veteran NHK commentator Kunihiro Sugiyama said: "The sumo world has to cut its links with the anti-social forces by restructuring and reducing the number of stables [sumo gyms] from the current 51 to no more than 40.

"Retired wrestlers these days want to make money quickly by establishing their own stables. They borrow a lot and that's why they become vulnerable to crime syndicates always eager to make them dependent through loans."