Football in Hungary

Football is the most popular sport in Hungary.^[2] Approximately 54% of Hungarians are interested in football.^[3] However, this was not always the case. Hungary’s acceptance of football began slowly and over time has been closely tied to corresponding political change in the country^[4]. The sport was once nearly banned in the country for being too dangerous, but, since the founding of the Hungarian Football Federation, Hungary has been recognized for historically lauded football^[4]. The Hungary national team has played in numerous international tournaments, including the inaugural football tournament in the Olympic Games (Stockholm 1912), nine World Cups, and four European Championships. Their greatest achievements are the three gold medals in the 1952, 1964 and 1968 Olympic Games, and the runner-up in the 1938 and 1954 World Cups. The team known as the Mighty Magyars was also the first non-British team to defeat England, 6–3 at Wembley in 1953. Months later, they defeated the English by a convincing 7–1 in Budapest in 1954, the worst defeat in the history of the English team.^[5][6] In recent years, Hungary has tried to regain their previous position in international football but has faced financial and logistical issues^[7].

The origin of football in Hungary has been attributed to multiple different people and processes. Some of the origin stories include that it was introduced by Károly Löwenrosen at the Millenium Exhibition after learning it abroad in England, or László Kosztovics who went to schools in England and wanted to play it back in his Hungarian home town, or Miksa Eszterházy who introduced the sport following his time as a Hungarian political representative abroad. All agree it was between 1870 and 1900^[4]. Another common origin story is that a typewriter salesman, Edward Shires, brought football to Hungary through his club of ex-pats in Vienna, however, evidence has been discovered that football was already being played by this point by day laborers^[8].

The first-ever football club to be founded in Hungary was Budapesti Torna Club having founded its football section in February 1897, dissolved in 1945–46. BTC is soon followed by the founding of the football sections of other important sport clubs in the city: the Magyar Úszó Egylet (MUE), the Budai Football Csapat, the Müegyetemi FC (MFC, later MAFC), the Magyar Athletikai Club (MAC) and the Budapesti Budai Torna Egylet (BBTC).^[10] Most of the associations were already operational in other sports and set up their football divisions after the popularisation that came with the first local an international games played by BTC and its followers. The first match between clubs to be played came on 6 February 1898 when BTC played against Müegyetemi FC, with the later winning 5–0 despite BTC having trained the MFC players previously. Nowadays the oldest still active football clubs in Hungary are Műegyetemi FC founded on 1 November of 1897 as a purely football club^[11] and III. Kerületi TVE, whose football section was officially opened in 1899 but stemmed from the Budai Football Csapat founded on 31 October 1897.^[12]

Despite its initial success, football was nearly banned in 1900 for fear that it was too dangerous after national team players suffered multiple game-related injuries^[4]. This led to the need to establish a stricter set of rules for football in Hungary. The Hungarian Football Federation (Hungarian: Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség or MLSZ), the sport's national governing body, was founded on 19 January 1901 by 13 clubs: BAK, BEAC, BSC, Budapesti TC, Budai Ganzgyár, Ganz Vagongyár, "33" FC, MAC, Magyar FC, Magyar ÚE, Műegyetemi FC, Postás, FTC, who took part in the first championship in 2 tiers that same year. The philosoph Jász Géza of Magyar FC, was nominated the first president of the MLSZ. Vice-presidents were nominated Ferenc Gillemot (MAFC) and Árpád Füzeséry (MUE), secretary general Ferenc Horváth (FTC), treasurer Gabona Károly (Budapesti TC), inspector Ignác Boros (BSC), accountants Róbert Békés (Ganz), Andor Telkes and Ferenc Eisner, and honorary president Károly Iszer (BTC).

In 1911, Edward Shires introduced the idea of bringing in players from other countries by recruiting John Tait Robertson and Joe Lane to MTK Hungária, a primarily Jewish club team^[8]. This attempt at globalization, however, was stunted due to the effects of World War I. World War I caused a downturn in Hungarian football due to emigration of players, economic struggles of clubs, and loss of public support^[4]. The emigration of players delayed the development of Hungarian football, but led to the spread of Hungarian football strategies. For example, during the interwar era 60 different Hungarian coaches spread Hungarian football to Italy^[4]. Going into World War II, Hungarian football was beginning to recover to pre-war popularity.

However, football had become a political tool for the Hungarian government. In 1939, major Jewish football clubs (including MTK Hungária) were disbanded throughout Hungary due to anti-Semitic rhetoric surrounding World War II^[4]. During the 1950s and 1960s, the sport had strong financial backing by the government which helped to develop the national team and generate its success^[4]. Football was exploited as a political show of power by communist Hungarian powers over the western capitalist powers representing certain victories as belonging to the government rather than the clubs themselves^[14]. In the 1980s, the fall of communism in Hungary caused football clubs to fall into bankruptcy which has continued through subsequent attempts to revive the sport^[4].

Hungary were regular features at major tournaments, such as the first Olympic Football Tournament (Stockholm 1912) and many FIFA World Cup.^[15] They were the first non-UK team to beat England at Wembley Stadium with their 6–3 victory in 1953.^[16][17][18] The golden age of Hungarian football took place in the 1950s, with the emergence of players of the caliber of Ferenc Puskás, László Kubala, Zoltán Czibor, Sándor Kocsis, Nándor Hidegkuti, Ferenc Szusza, József Bozsik & Gyula Grosics. This team (with the exception of Kubala, who only played 3 games with Hungary before playing for Spain) was known as the Golden Team and remained undefeated for 32 consecutive games, winning the gold medal in the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki and reaching the final in the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland, always with Ferenc Puskás as a star (84 goals in 85 matches playing for the Hungary national football team). The twilight of this team that marveled the world came with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and after a match of the European Champion's Cup Budapest Honvéd in Bilbao, many of the stars like Czibor, Kocsis and Puskás decided not to return to their country and sign for teams from Western Europe, meaning his retirement from the national team. Puskás joined Real Madrid in 1958, winning three European Cups and debuting with the Spain national football team in 1961, while Czibor and Kocsis joined FC Barcelona.^[19] In 1967, the Ferencváros T.C. Flórián Albert became the inaugural Hungarian to win the Golden Ball, surpassing the second place achieved by Puskás seven years before. With the dominant performance of Hungary in the 1950s, football became a source of pride amongst nationalist groups, and they used it as an outlet for nationalist and Soviet tensions causing a culture around rowdiness and racism to form at matches^[20]. As the popularity of football rose, the Soviets began to see it as a threat to their regime, and stripped it away from the Hungarian public^[20]. As a result, attendance to matches dropped from over 17,000 attendees to less than 3,000^[20].

Post soviet rule, the Hungarian government has been trying to pick up the pieces, and bring Hungary back into the football world. This has been difficult, however, with FIFA sanctioning Hungary for racist occurrences at matches^[7]. Perhaps the most notable of these occurrences was in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 qualifying match against England that led to sanctions from FIFA because of the behavior of fans who were making racist chants towards English players^[7]. Hungary's football team participated in the 1982 and 1986 World Cups.

Budapest is the location of the headquarters of the Hungarian Football Federation.

Hungary's capital Budapest has seven professional football teams, six of them have won the Hungarian 1st division. Until 1925, teams from Budapest were the only teams in the Hungarian national league despite the existence of teams in other cities^[4]. Until July 2012 teams based in Budapest have won the Hungarian Championship 96 times and teams from other cities have won it 14 times.

The Hungarian football clubs have several international successes.^{[21][22][23][24]} Ferencvárosi TC won the 1964–65 edition of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and was runner-up in the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1974–75 season and the Cup of Fairs in 1968, while Újpest FC reached the final of the Fair Cup in 1969, Videoton FC the UEFA Cup in 1985, and MTK Budapest FC that of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1964.^[25][26]

After the 1989-1990 shift in political power in Hungary professional clubs were still supported by the new government and used all the funds they were given. However, many youth clubs were not given much support from the new government, there wasn't much education of young football players in schools and little to no coaching either. Also, in many cases the education of new football players is integrated into the structure of bigger clubs, who train professional players^[27].

• Hungarian National Championship I
• Hungarian National Championship II
• Hungarian Cup
• Hungarian Super Cup

The table below lists all Budapest clubs in the top three tiers of the Hungarian football league system: from the top division (the Nemzeti Bajnokság I), down to the Nemzeti Bajnokság III. League status is correct for the 2012–13 season.

The Hungarian national team, in its different categories, is controlled by the Hungarian Football Federation.

The Hungarian team played their first official game on 12 October 1902 in Vienna against Austria, a match that was resolved with a 5–0 win for the Austrians. Hungary has played in nine FIFA World Cups and two European Championships. The best result of Hungary national team was when they reached the FIFA World Cup final twice; they lost to Italy in 1938, and lost again to West Germany in 1954.^[28] Since then, Hungary's performance has diminished.^{[29][30][31][32]}

Stadiums with a capacity of 15,000 or higher are included.

In the 1959-60 season, Ferencváros drew an average home league attendance of 49,308, the highest by far in that season. This figure also remains the all-time highest average home league attendance for a Hungarian club. Ferencváros was also named Kinizsi and ÉDOSZ.

The average attendance per top-flight football league season and the club with the highest average attendance:

Source:^[37]