Hungarian football could soon enter a bigger league, not that our national team has suddenly grown wings of course. On Monday the Hungarian Football Federation (MLSZ) held an extraordinary session and unanimously voted for changes in those basic rules which Sándor Csányi, the managing director of OTP, specified as a condition for taking on the presidency of the organization; for example, that the body directing the federation should be smaller. The result of the vote has removed the obstacle in the way of electing the banker president of MLSZ on 6 July.  

Indeed, Sándor Csányi has already named his six candidates for board members. With one exception, all of them are drawn from outside the world of football: Szilveszter E. Vizi, an academic;  Árpád Kovács, the former president of the State Audit Office of Hungary;  Erik Bánki, the leader of the Parliamentary Sports Committee, Sándor Berzi, the CEO of Videoton FC;  Radev Anthony, a partner of McKinsey & Company;  Zoltán Borbély, the spokesman for the Office of the Prosecutor General.

Some people have surmised that what lies behind the role of the banker is a previous agreement with the prime minister, although the only thing that is certain is that, similarly to Viktor Orbán, the financier is an avid football fan. Like other prestigious players in the Hungarian economy, OTP supports the Puskás Ferenc Academy, an initiative of the prime minister to nurture football talent.   

Vacancy as a result of crime

Based on the prime minister's statements, sport will again receive special attention in this political term; however, some have interpreted this as part of the "all-out assault" of the right wing. This theory is supported by the selection of three Fidesz politicians as sports leaders in the recent past: Kristóf Szatmáry became the president of the Hungarian Table Tennis Association, while Tamás Deutsch, an EP, was appointed president of MTK sports club.

It might look like Fidesz are aggressively pushing their own ahead.  Yet the situation is somewhat altered by the fact that all three positions have become vacant because of criminal proceedings against their previous holders. Szatmáry has taken the place of Fülöp Benedek, the state secretary convicted over a land corruption case.  Pesti succeeds Miklós Hagyó, former Budapest deputy mayor accused and then charged with corruption, and Deutsch's name came up after MTK's former president, György Hunvald, was taken into custody.   

Being drawn to the winner can be observed in every governmental cycle - especially in the case of smaller sports associations less able to enforce their interests. For example, this is why the socialist Imre Szekeres managed the triathlon association from 2003, the biggest umbrella organization, while the presidential seat of the National Confederation of Sporting Bodies is still occupied by Attila Mesterházy, MSZP parliamentary faction leader.

Some sports associations hope to break out of the desperate lack of funds by soliciting the help of financiers (this is partly the reason why János Erős, the outgoing managing director of the Hungarian Development Bank, is president of the association of fencers). Some prestigious sports, such as golfing or sailing, as expected, exploit the management of businesses with a corresponding image (see graphs).    

The intertwining of politics, business and sport is not characteristic of Hungary alone. Numerous examples include former US president, George W. Bush, who prepared his role in public life partly through his baseball team, Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who entered politics after he linked together AC Milan and his media empire, and Vladimir Putin, a lover of judo who raised the sport to be one of "new" Russia's emblems. (Putin is also the honorary president of the World Judo Association, the honorary vice-president of which is Sándor Csányi.)

Competitive and leisure sports are not faring well despite the bridges built with the business and political spheres. Only 7-9 percent of the Hungarian population does any exercise, while this proportion is 30 percent in Western Europe. At the same time, something has gone wrong with competitive sports too, which is shown by the disappointments in past Olympic Games, partly caused by the expectation in Hungary of only gold medals being "acceptable". Although half of the total sports expenditure of the state is spent on fewer than ten Olympic sports (the rest is spent on other competitive and all the leisure sports), wrestling and pentathlon are struggling with insufficient media interest and thus marketability problems.

Frozen structures

But why should the state support competitive sports at all? According to Krisztina András, the head of the Research Centre for Sport Business at Corvinus University, the state's role can be supported by many arguments, such as sports shaping the country's image and the improved health of those encouraged by successful sportsmen to do some exercise. Those branches of sport that are marketable can also be further helped.  In the case of football, this could take the form of nurturing talent and constructing stadiums.

Of course all of this only makes sense if the state speaks the language of business, i.e. it does not only fill up a sack full of holes with taxpayers' forints but rather expects and demands in exchange for money. "The present system of state financing is too bureaucratic, and it is sometimes for this reason and not because of a lack of funds that the required amounts for training do not reach sports people. Thus even the little money available can get lost in the complexity of the system or is not used properly," explains the researcher to Heti Válasz. 

Many organizations deal with the distribution of state funds, ranging from the Hungarian Olympic Committee through the National Sports Association to the Miklós Wesselényi Foundation. Moreover, the clubs are not on the top of their game either.  According to the calculations made by Tamás Sárközy, a lawyer and president of the National Sports Council, while in Western Europe operational costs amount to four or five percent of funds, in Hungary that proportion reaches twenty percent in some cases. In addition to there not being enough money, the lack of transparency is the major obstacle to progress. Because of this, serious investors are not willing to put their money into domestic football for example, and all the well-intentioned and generous political will in the world comes to nothing.  

Despite these self-defensive arguments, it is not primarily the reluctance of investors in a "small market", i.e. lack of money, that can be blamed for the fact that Hungary has now not qualified to play in the World Cup since 1986. In the region, Slovakia, which is generally on the same level as Hungary, and more backward Serbia, have managed to qualify to play in the World Cup in South Africa.   

The reason for failure is much more attributable to the structure of Hungarian football - linked with the grey economy - that "froze" during socialism and has not yet defrosted. A good example of this is the final results of the championship: the three teams standing on the podium are from the provinces (Debrecen, Videoton and Győr) which have been drastically reorganized by their local government owners or by a solvent businessman.  

The example of ice-hockey

Other team sports have managed to set a new course for themselves with more success. Thanks to a more or less stable and transparent financial background, enthusiasm and success, ice hockey and water polo have developed despite the general decline in Hungarian sports. For example, in comparison to 2000, the number of certified water polo players has quadrupled. From 2003 until now, ice hockey players have not just fought their way into the ranks of the world's elite players but the number of young players has also risen by a thousand, and ten new ice rinks have been built.  All of this was achieved by the federation on an expenditure of 1.7 billion, from which only 380 million was state support.

Football could also do with some improvement. The now likely presidency of Sándor Csányi in the football federation not only holds the hope of the rigid structure soon being deconstructed, but it also sends a message to other investors that it is worth putting their money into Hungarian football. It would represent a guarantee for other investors that putting their money into football is worthwhile. Of course, even such a rich swallow does not a summer make in Hungarian football, as the right environment is also needed for this. To this effect, Parliament will soon debate the proposals which would create new sources of funding for domestic, competitive and leisure sports.

"It is our main objective that the number of people who regularly engage in sport would increase above two million over the next ten years, i.e. to double the present number. According to our plans, in the future private individuals will more easily be able to support sports associations from their personal income tax.

We will also submit a proposal that physical education classes be held every day," said Erik Bánki, the president of the Parliamentary Committee for Sport and Tourism.

In addition, the Fidesz politician has also announced plans in regard to providing incentives for big companies; they wish to encourage support of team sports through introducing tax concessions and by fostering the acquisition of shares. In response to our question concerning the interweaving of sport and politics Bánki said: it would be a better scenario if businessmen, managers or ex-sportsmen were the presidents of associations instead of government party politicians who do not nurture serious ties with the given sport. 

The new government wants to simplify the administration too. The prime minister asked the Hungarian Olympic Committee (led by Pál Schmitt of Fidesz) to elaborate a simpler system. A model to be adopted could be the German one, where the associations of the Olympic and the non-Olympic competitive sports, as well as the representatives of leisure, handicapped and student sports, belong to the same organization. If Hungary adopts a similar system, the question will be if support given to sports with respectable traditions although pursued by few - and hardly appearing in the media - will continue to be significant.