One of the biggest soccer fans in global politics, Viktor Orbán, has been sidelined from his big game.
The right-wing populist leader and Trump ally’s heavy defeat in the Hungarian elections means incoming Prime Minister Péter Magyar will be the one in charge when the Champions League final comes to Budapest next month.
That’s a political shift in Europe and raises questions about Orbán’s ambitions for Hungary to stage world sports’ biggest events like top soccer finals, major track championships and a potential Olympic bid.
Under Orbán, a former soccer player and regular in the VIP boxes at World Cup and Champions League finals, Hungary boasts costly new stadiums including Budapest’s Puskás Aréna, which will host the biggest game in European club soccer on May 30.
“That was supposed to be the icing on the cake for Orbán and his regime. He’s been working very hard to get that final to Budapest and to Hungary,” said Győző Molnár, professor of sociology of sport and exercise at the University of Worcester.
If Magyar attends the Champions League final, that will “signal a firm regime change,” Molnár said.
Now there will likely be changes, and sports organizations will need to forge ties with a new government.
Magyar has denied opponents’ claims he’ll cut funding for sports. Still, his Tisza party’s election platform signaled a shift in emphasis. It criticized the use of public money to build “overpriced” stadiums and run prestige projects while “school and local sports activities have withered away.”
European soccer body UEFA didn’t comment when asked if it would invite both Orban and Magyar to the game. It told the AP planning for the game “continues as scheduled”.
Champions League final the highlight
Orbán once played soccer in Hungary’s lower leagues. The team from his home village of Felcsut has grown alongside his political ambitions in recent decades and is now a regular in European competitions, with a state-of-the-art stadium to match.
Besides his beloved soccer, Hungary has lined up track and field’s Ultimate Championships for September with the sport’s richest-ever prize fund, and the world swimming championships next year for the third time in a decade. It’s soccer’s go-to neutral host in political crisis and a home from home for the Israeli team. The capital, Budapest, has a bid for the 2036 Olympics in the works.
Orbán frequently fought with the European Union over its criticism of his authoritarian style and his opposition to much EU support for neighboring Ukraine. Molnár says Orbán portrayed sports bodies’ willingness to hold events in Hungary as a form of support.
“These aren’t just sporting events for him. They were Orbán’s answer to, for instance, EU criticisms” and let him to respond that “UEFA still trusts us with the biggest match,” Molnár said.
Not all his projects worked out, though. Despite tax breaks which led Orbán allies to plow money into Hungary’s soccer clubs, they’re still not that competitive internationally. The national team last qualified for a World Cup in 1986, a far cry from the teams of “Mighty Magyars” who were runners-up in 1938 and 1954.
Uncertainty to come
There’s been no sign that Hungary will cancel any events which are already scheduled for the coming months and years, but priorities could change.
Magyar has said his government would end what he called the politicization of sports under Orbán. “Politics has become entrenched in the sports associations and the soccer clubs to a degree that we didn’t even see during socialism,” he said in September.
The cost of living could take up more of the new government’s time, too. In a tough global economic climate, even Saudi Arabia’s vast global sports portfolio is facing scrutiny.
The mayor of the capital, Budapest, is a liberal who opposed Orbán but isn’t a natural ally of Magyar, either. After an Orbán-backed bid for the 2024 Olympics was withdrawn — Paris got the Games — Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony is set to explore another bid next year. The International Olympic Committee told the AP it wouldn’t comment on “political developments” or the bid.
World Athletics is working with the city government ahead of its Ultimate Championships in September. “We continue to work closely with our Hungarian counterparts towards the successful delivery” of the event, World Athletics told the AP.
Budapest is a power base in the Olympic movement, too. The governing bodies for swimming, canoeing and judo have all started or completed moves to Hungary from Switzerland. The biggest is World Aquatics, which is due to move in 2028.
Its package included legal immunity for some acts, “tax benefits” and a headquarters site “free of charge for 15 years,” foreign minister Péter Szijjártó said at the time.
“World Aquatics has always maintained a strong, positive relationship with Hungary,” it told the AP. “We have no doubt that this relationship will continue to thrive under the new leadership of Péter Magyar, whom we congratulate on his recent victory as Prime Minister of Hungary.”
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Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary, and Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report.
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