Japan almost never sends sumo abroad. That it chose London after the UK RAA, and Paris during France RAA negotiations, is hard to read as coincidence. The timing is heavily suggestive of dohyō diplomacy.
When sumo returned to London in October 2025 after 34 years, the international coverage showed Yokozuna Hoshoryu and Onosato posing with junior-ranked rikishi (wrestlers) in front of Buckingham Palace and even enjoying hot dogs from a street vendor along the River Thames in front of the Houses of Parliament. The footage was widespread on every social platform in most markets. Almost nobody wrote about the date. The UK-Japan Reciprocal Access Agreement had entered into force two years earlier. Next month, sumo performs in Paris as France and Japan negotiate their own RAA.
Sumo’s governing body, the JSA (Japan Sumo Association), is deeply tied to Japanese state ceremony, from the Emperor’s Cup – the Prime Minister’s Cup has been awarded at top-division championships since 1968 – to the consecrated dohyō. This institutional architecture makes exporting sumo a state act, not merely a sporting one.
Sumo rarely hits the road
London’s Royal Albert Hall appearance in October 2025 was the first overseas tour in roughly twenty years. The association treats international appearances with a restraint that makes each destination legible as a choice rather than a schedule.
At the December 2024 press conference at Royal Albert Hall announcing the tour, JSA chairman Nobuyoshi Hakkaku, who had won the last London tournament in 1991 under his wrestling name, Yokozuna Hokutoumi, said he would make every effort to “convey to the people of London the appeal of sumo, an ancient traditional Japanese culture.” Six months after the London tour, the institutional dimension was made formal.
On April 24, 2026, the City of London awarded Hakkaku the Freedom of the City. The Japanese Embassy’s Deputy Head of Mission, Masaki Ikegami, attended. Hakkaku refused to take personal credit. He said it was an honor but not an individual accomplishment, rather one that “owes much to everyone’s contributions to sustain the Japanese traditions and culture of Grand Sumo.”
The Freedom of the City ceremony came just three weeks after the Macron-Takaichi Tokyo summit and seven weeks before the Paris tour.
France-Japan RAA negotiations were launched at the Kishida-Macron bilateral summit in May 2024. Macron just returned from Tokyo last month, where the summit advanced the bilateral relationship across security and cultural lines. Six weeks later, sumo follows. The narrative indicates that sumo tours function as soft-power signals.
France itself has historical precedent for this reading. The last time sumo wrestling visited France was in 1995, under President Jacques Chirac. Chirac, a known fan of sumo, was also the politician who hosted an earlier tour in 1986. (President of France: 1995-2007; Prime Minister of France: 1974-1976, 1986-1988; Mayor of Paris: 1977-1995.)
France has Indo-Pacific interests that make it a meaningful partner for Japan in security terms. Its 2025 strategy is built around sovereign territory and naval capacity in the region. Joint Franco-Japanese exercises have been conducted on Japanese soil. The RAA under negotiation would simplify the movement of forces and equipment between the two countries and move France closer to the small group of Japan’s closest bilateral security partners, which currently includes the United States, the UK, Australia, and the Philippines.
RAA is not yet signed
The dohyō that will be built at the Accor Arena for the June event will be prepared according to the same strict ritual protocol as in Japan, local clay consecrated by the same ceremony, carrying the institutional form of sumo intact onto Parisian soil. The question worth considering is why Japan has chosen this moment to send sumo abroad, something it almost never does.
Event organizers are describing the tournament as a chance for spectators to “immerse themselves in Japanese culture” and to celebrate France-Japan friendship. Commercially, that’s the perfect framing. Politically, it’s something else entirely.
Freedom Ahn 