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Hungarian Football: A Socio-historical Overview

Article in Sport in History · June 2007

DOI: 10.1080/17460260701437110

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Sport in History
Vol. 27, No. 2, June 2007, pp. 293
317

Hungarian Football:
A Socio-historical Overview
Gyozo Molnar

This article provides a brief overview of the history of Hungarian football

from the beginning to the years of post-Communist transition. In relying on
both sport and more general historical Hungarian and English sources, it
explores the political, cultural and social conditions that have had an impact
on the development of Hungarian football throughout its history. The chief
aim of this article is to draw attention to those historical periods and aspects
of Hungarian football, which have not been extensively researched. In doing
this, the development of Hungarian football will be outlined and links made
with broader historical and social processes. Also, an attempt will be made to
explain the ways these processes shaped and used football for various political
purposes, from as early as the turn of the nineteenth century.

Introduction
It is clear that certain historical periods of Hungarian football have
generated noteworthy international journalistic and academic interest. In
particular, the post-Second World War years have enjoyed considerable
attention due to the outstanding international performance of the
Hungarian national football team in the 1950s. While the team of ‘Magic
Magyars’, symbolized by the figure of Ferenc Puskás, have been well
covered, other phases of Hungarian football have remained relatively
unknown to the wider international public. Hence the chief purpose of
this article is to fill this lacuna and show that there is more to Hungarian
football than a few years of outstanding performances from the ‘Magic
Magyars’.

Gyozo Molnar, North East Wales Institute of Higher Education. Correspondence to:??

ISSN 1746-0263 print; ISSN 1746-0271 online/07/020293-25 # 2007 The British Society of Sports History
DOI: 10.1080/17460260701437110
294 G. Molnar

In doing so, a brief but comprehensive socio-historical overview will be

provided on the development of Hungarian football from its beginnings
in the late nineteenth century to the years of post-Communist transition.
It will be shown that football has been deeply embedded in Hungarian
society, entangled with Hungarian politics, economy and culture and thus
tied to wider historical processes since the 1900s. Light will also be shed
on to what degree these factors and processes had an impact on the
development of football and shaped its progress.

The initial stages

Aspects of the origins of Hungarian football appear to be rather blurred
due to lack of historical evidence, leading to varying historical
interpretations. For instance, it is still not clear who ‘smuggled’ the first
football into Hungary or when this happened. József Hoffer, Zoltán Thaly
and Andrew Handler state that it took place in 1896 and was the work of
Károly Löwenrosen, who was a globetrotter and ‘emigrated to England a
few years earlier, returned to his native land and placed a ball on display at
the Millennial Exhibition’. [1] János Komáromi asserts that László
Kosztovics, a Hungarian student, after visiting several schools in England,
brought the first football to Hungary in 1879, and made an unsuccessful
attempt to establish football in Szentendre (a town that is situated north
of Budapest on the banks of the River Danube). [2] Other sources indicate
that the first football was brought to Hungary in 1875 by Miksa
Eszterházy, an attaché of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. [3] Regardless
of the varying opinions and evidence concerning the date of arrival of the
first football, it can still be observed that football was present and played,
often without any structures or many rules, in Hungary before 1897. [4]
Although the first proper description of the game appeared in December
1896 (this is considered as the first Hungarian football rulebook, written
by Mihály Bély), the crystallization and harmonization of rules could
be achieved only after the establishment of the Hungarian Football
Association in 1901.
The year 1897 especially appears to be crucial and could be named the
year of birth of Hungarian football. [5] This was the year when the first
football team (Budapest Gymnastics Club) was formed. It was also the
year in which the first public football match took place, when the first
international match was organized between Austria and Hungary, and the
year in which people started paying entrance fees for attending football
matches. Furthermore, later that year, football began to filter into the
public sphere and was diffused from the capital to some of the provincial
 Sport in History 295
areas. This process was combined with the phenomenon of newly
emerging football teams as part of already existing sport clubs (e.g. the
Polytechnic University Athletics and Football Club and the 3rd District
Gymnastics and Fencing Association). [6] In 1898, the number of football
clubs further increased and rudimentary football matches began to take
place all around the country in towns such as Eperjes, Szabadka, Baja,
Halas and Zenta, and Hungary played against Austria in Vienna for the
first time. [7] One year later, the Ferencváros Gymnastics Club (FTC) was
founded. It still exists, and is one of the most influential and controversial
football clubs of recent times. [8]
In 1900 the development of the game was inhibited due to an
unfortunate match between the Hungarian Athletics Club and the
Berliners that resulted in serious injuries to several of the players on
both sides. As a reaction to this, it was proposed by Ágoston Del Medicó
(a Budapest city council member) that football should be banned from all
schools. [9] Most of the schools supported this proposal and football
became a ‘public-enemy’. This led to a fierce debate at the Budapest
general assembly, held in June 1900, that ended in favour of the continued
existence of football. The question of football was brought to MPs’
attention and it was noted that football was perceived as ‘a sport for wild
men’ by some of the MPs, and ‘only the customary snail’s pace of the
parliamentary proceedings prevented them from adopting a proposal to
ban it’. [10]
However, it would be inaccurate to state that one violent football game
could incite such hostile feelings towards the presence of football in
Hungary. On the contrary, it is argued that this aversion to football in
Hungarian society at the turn of the nineteenth century derived chiefly
from two sources, one real and one imagined. [11] The real problem was
created by the tension between the nature of football and the Hungarian
upper class’s level of tolerance for violence. This was the result of an
increasing monopolization of violence in social relations by the ruling
class. [12] Handler illustrates this situation as follows:

In its simplest and purest form the ingredients of soccer consist of a

pitch of land, four piles of clothes to create the illusion of goalposts
and two teams of equal size, kicking a mostly round object made of
small pieces of cloth twisted around or sewn together. Small wonder
that discriminating gentleman, for whom certain sports were pastimes
of questionable taste and limited to the socially unprivileged, objected
to the sounds and sights of soccer. Their sensibilities, accustomed to
the refined, graceful, quiet elegance that tennis and riding imparted,
were offended by a bunch of sweaty and noisy men running up and
296 G. Molnar

down on an ill-defined field, chasing an oddly shaped ball and often

colliding with reckless abandon, causing pain and injury. [13]

Football was perceived as a contact sport and, by its nature, allowed and
facilitated physical interactions of players that, on occasions, led to
injuries and violence. [14] Therefore an unrealistic image of football was
created and distributed to the public, fuelled by the antipathy of the
traditionalist ruling class and exaggerated by dubious facts and gossip
from Western countries. For example,

In 1894 Hungarian newspapers printed articles written by the

opponents of soccer, who cited alarming albeit undocumented
statistics. It was noted that in England in the previous three years 74
people lost their lives and 437 were injured and crippled playing
soccer. The game must not be allowed to take root in Hungary, they
concluded. [15]

In short, some members of the Hungarian upper class, based on their

conservative value-system and control over the monopoly of violence,
declared football repugnant because of its uncivilized characteristics,
unlike the more graceful, noble type of spare-time activities with which
they were familiar. They also believed that ‘affluence, leisure and play
constituted a natural sequence and were the inalienable possessions of the
privileged segments of society’ and thus made a forceful attempt to
eliminate football from Hungary. [16] By virtue of this, football was made
to seem a menace to society, a physical activity that should not be
practised and had to be banned. In spite of this aversion to the sport,
the attempt to ban football did not succeed and ‘the ball rolled over the
objections of apprehensive elitists’. [17]
The conclusion of this debate around football was possibly the result of
the level of popularity football had already achieved among a wide range
of social groups in Hungary, and thus the upper class’s monopoly of
violence became fragmented and was overruled by the large number of
people from various social circles who believed that football was no threat.
This process of ‘reclaiming monopoly’ was partially responsible for
facilitating the initial development of football in Hungary. [18]
By 1901, football was rapidly gaining broad acceptance in Hungarian
society and national and international football matches became frequent.
(These internationals were held between clubs from different countries.
The first fixture of the Hungarian national team took place on 11 April
1901.) For example, there was only one international and one national
football match held in Hungary in 1897. By the next year, two
international and twelve national matches were reported. One year later,
 Sport in History 297
thirteen international and eighteen national games took place, twelve of
those in Budapest and six in other cities. In 1900, the number of both the
international (forty) and national (Budapest, thirty-eight; other cities,
fourteen) football games increased significantly. [19]
The increased number of football events, however, created a high degree
of contradiction and disorder among existing football clubs, which
evidently called for a ruling organization to oversee and bring structure
to Hungarian football. Consequently, the Hungarian Football Association
(FA) was established on 19 January 1901 by thirteen sports clubs and
the Racetrack Association. The first official FA meeting was held on
4 February 1901; it considered the launching of an official national
championship and the unification of various domestic interpretations of
football rules by adopting English league regulations.
In the beginning, it was characteristic of Hungarian football that it fully
followed English football traditions. (Riordan makes a similar observation
with reference to the development of Russian football.) [20] Even the
football related expressions and technical terms were adopted, together
with the word ‘football’ itself. This has changed over time. For example,
the word ‘football’ was replaced with labdarúgás (ball-kicking) and
futball, which is the Hungarian spelling of ‘football’. Furthermore, some of
the original English football regulations were gradually transformed to
suit Hungarian football circumstances (e.g. the introduction of the
autumn-spring season in 1906).

Hungarian football on the European stage

After the initial tumult, the years of solid football development began. The
most significant achievements of this phase were the stabilization of the
national football league, the Hungarian FA, international football
relations and football firmly establishing itself in the wider society. The
national football league, by and large, still followed the English model and
demonstrated the dominance of Budapest-based clubs. For instance,
during the first twenty-four years of the football league, Budapest and
provincial clubs participated in different leagues. [21] It was only in the
1925
6 season that a provincial team, Erzsébetfalvi TC, appeared in the
national league table. From this season on, provincial teams regularly took
part in league competitions. However, only after the 1930s did they begin
to achieve noticeably higher positions in the league table. Regardless of the
development of provincial football, to the present day Budapest-based
clubs tend to dominate the first division (now professional) football
league. [22]
298 G. Molnar

The development of Hungarian football was also significantly influ-

enced by the Youth Football Association (YFA) that was formed in 1903.
In 1905, the YFA introduced the ‘autumn-spring season’ national league
system that better suited Central-European weather conditions. In 1906,
the Hungarian FA adopted this system and annexed the YFA. [23] The
Hungarian FA also made several attempts to gain European recognition,
for instance by organizing international matches. The first officially
organized Austria-Hungary football contest took place in 1902, which was
the first step towards an international match series.
As a result of these endeavours, the organization received an invitation
to participate at the second FIFA congress in June 1905. Since the
invitation did not go directly to the Hungarian FA, but via the Austrian
FA, Hungary refused to participate in this event. [24] It must be noted
that during this period behaviour of this kind was a ‘natural reaction’ for
Hungarians due to the extensive anti-Magyar campaign from the Austrian
side of the Empire, which had long-term effects on the Hungarian self-
image. [25] This nationalistic tension ensured that football matches
between the two nations were often perceived as some sort of fight
between Kuruc (Hungarians who rebelled against Austrian oppression
between 1703 and 1711) and Labanc (Austrian foot-soldier). [26] As a
part of this anti-Hungarian campaign, Francz von Loher wrote that

There is no a single cultural idea
whether in the laws, the military,

and the state, in religion and customs, in art and in science, or any
other field
which would have found its way from Hungary to the
educated world. . . . It is really true that Magyar people are still about
on the same commercial level as they were 1,000 years ago, when their
tents were still shining over the Asiatic steppes. [27]

This quotation indicates the way Hungarians and Hungarian culture were
often perceived by Austrians and, thus, the reason for the Hungarian FA’s
response. Hence, it can be argued that, while Hungary was still part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, and in a subservient position, football and the
international acknowledgment of the Hungarian FA, as an independent
Hungarian institution, was a means for the nation to gain a greater degree
of recognition. However, it is to be noted that some writers have argued
that the nationalistic tension between Austrians and Hungarians was not
so severe. [28]
Nevertheless, for the Hungarian FA, this reaction proved to be a
hindrance in gaining broader recognition since it missed the first
opportunity to be a part of the international football fraternity. The
Hungarian FA acknowledged this mistake, and shortly after the second
 Sport in History 299
FIFA congress signalled its intention to become a member, which was
realized in 1907. (It is to be noted that there seems to be a divergence
between Hungarian sources and the FIFA website regarding the date of
Hungary’s membership. The FIFA website states that by the time of the
second FIFA Congress in 1905, associations from Germany, Austria, Italy
and Hungary joined FIFA. This probably means that Hungary was granted
membership as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1905. However,
Hungary was recognized as a full and independent member only in 1907.)
Hungary then became an active member of FIFA, evidenced by the fact
that the sixth annual FIFA congress was held in Budapest in 1909, together
with an international Hungary versus England game. [29]
After 1909, football demonstrates a relatively unproblematic develop-
ment through the construction of new football grounds (e.g. the FTC
ground, built in 1911), increasing mass involvement and more frequent
international matches (Hungary played forty-one international games
between 1907 and 1914). [30] As Handler observes, ‘Soccer in Hungary
matured and a new generation of players, fully trained in technique and
skills, took the field. The teams were at full strength, since the luring away
of outstanding players tempted by lucrative foreign contracts still had not
begun, so the fans were treated to exciting matches.’ [31] This
development was interrupted by the First World War, when the level of
football was set back to a less advanced stage. Despite the decline in
football and the ongoing war, the game itself continued to be played. In
Hungary, a military championship was organized, which, due to the
reduced number of active teams, allowed all functioning clubs to
participate. [32] Opportunities for football were very limited during the
war and organized internationals (mostly with Austria) and domestic
football matches were not of pre-war quality.
The First World War led to the destruction of the Empire, and, partially
due to the Treaty of Trianon, Hungary suffered severe economic and
political losses that had an impact on football development. Clubs found
themselves on the edge of bankruptcy and lacked equipment. One of the
‘money-saving’ provisions of the clubs was the so-called ‘ball-attrition fee’
[sic], which was to be paid by the visiting team to the home team for
simply using the ball. [33] The poor financial conditions of Hungary in
general and football in particular generated an emigration of football
players, beginning in 1919. These movements continued in the next few
years. For a short time there existed a solely Hungarian football team in
Germany in 1920, which was disqualified by the German FA after three
matches. [34] This out-flow of footballers could be viewed as the first
football-related migration involving Hungarians, which was mostly driven
300 G. Molnar

by the post-war depression and economic decline. The emigration of

Hungarian players peaked between 1925 and 1926, and began to decline
significantly in 1928, then stagnated throughout the following four years.
[35] This reduction in the number of migrant footballers was due to the
introduction of a professional football league, which was Hungary’s
reaction to the forming of professional leagues in Austria in 1924 and in
Czechoslovakia in 1925. This league came into being in the 1926
7 season
and revitalized Hungarian football. [36]
Despite the financial difficulties, migration-related problems and the
boycott of the defeated countries that was called for by England, football
acted as a mediator between those countries that had fought against one
another in the war. [37] This boycott was first broken by Italy at the end
of 1920, when it invited an Austrian team. [38] (This decision was
partially based on the revisions of First World War peace treaties.)
Moreover, a Hungarian sports diplomat, Mór Fischer, facilitated several
internationals that helped in rebuilding pre-war sporting relations
between opposing nation states. Hungary played numerous international
matches between 1920 and 1926 with, for instance, Finland, Belgium,
Spain, Czechoslovakia and Italy in the hope of improving diplomatic as
well as sporting relations. [39] This is another example of football
functioning not only as a purely sporting activity but as an aid for
re-establishing damaged international networks.

Professionalization of football
In the 1920s, the problem of amateurism, shamateurism, and profession-
alism became an urgent issue. [40] Since the Hungarian FA only
recognized amateur players, many footballers became ‘shamateurs’ (these
players officially held amateur status, but received monetary compensa-
tion contrary to the Hungarian football regulations at that time), or
simply left the country for paid football positions. This led directly to a
series of poor performances by the national team that induced the
Hungarian FA to put a halt to this process. [41] An emergency meeting
was held in 1926 at which a professional sub-association was created
to manage the new professional league. The advantages of professiona-
lization manifested themselves in sophisticated youth development
programmes, the modernization of coach and referee education and an
improvement of international relations. [42]
Hungarian football began to regain its former international prestige
despite the lack of success of the national team. Hungarian football clubs
such as FTC, Újpest and Hungária commenced highly productive tours all
 Sport in History 301
over the globe. For instance, FTC defeated Uruguay away from home in
1929, Újpest succeeded in Geneva in 1930 and Hungária introduced the
skills of Hungarian footballers to Egypt, Mexico and the USA in 1934.
[43] In addition to this, Mór Fischer was elected to be the president of
FIFA in 1927. This increased the international significance of Hungarian
football even further.
Regardless of these achievements, Hungarian football faced serious
problems with its professional league. Clubs went on foreign tours too
often, which influenced the quality of both the domestic game and the
national team. The professional players appeared weary and this weakened
the performance and reputation of Hungarian football. [44] As a result of
this, in 1935, the Hungarian FA merged the amateur and professional
leagues and created the so-called ‘National Championship’ wherein both
professional and amateur teams competed. [45] This provision signifi-
cantly improved the international standing of the national team, which
managed to win the silver medal in the 1938 World Cup. Although it was
an outstanding performance, this result left both the players and the
country with bitterness as the team had been expected to win. It has been
observed that ‘while the Italian team lined up happily before the VIP
boxes, the defeated Hungarian gang marched off the pitch sadly, with long
faces’. [46]
Towards the end of 1939, the growth of anti-Jewish sentiments not only
changed public life, but affected the performance of football clubs as well.
Miklós Hadas has argued that the emerging waves of Aryanization
throughout the whole of Hungarian society drastically affected the sphere
of sport. [47] (Lendvai points out that, at that time, Hungary was not
only perceived as ‘the country of Gypsies’ but also as ‘the country of Jews’.
For instance, Karl Luger, former Mayor of Vienna, invented terms such as
‘Judaeo-Magyars’ or ‘Judapest’.) [48] As a part of this process of
Aryanization, Jews were replaced by gentile Hungarians. [49] For example,
the manager of Hungária (later MTK), one of the most significant Jewish
football clubs, was replaced with an extreme right-wing commissioner in
1939 who disbanded the team one year later. Shortly after this, the leaders
of Hungária requested the fans to support another football team (Vasas).
Hadas interprets this phenomenon as the revival of a symbolic union
between bourgeois Jews (Hungária supporters) and labour social
democrats (Vasas supporters), based on the common ideological aspects
(e.g. anti-fascism) of the two interest groups. [50]
The Hungarian football situation was further destabilized when the
Ministry of Internal Affairs suspended the Hungarian FA executive board
in 1939 on the basis of weak international performances, and appointed a
302 G. Molnar

government commissioner to oversee international football matters. [51]

These actions of the Hungarian right-wing government, led by Miklós
Horthy
by this time Gyula Gömbös was the prime minister and Horthy
possessed only symbolic power
were in large part the result of strong
anti-Semitism throughout Hungary. [52] Finally, the outbreak of the
Second World War, in which Hungary took up arms against the Allies,
opened a new chapter in the development of football.

From Nazism to Communism

Not much has been written about Hungarian football during the Second
World War. However, games still continued to be played. Komáromi lists
nineteen internationals between 1940 and 1944. Hoffer and Thaly observe
that the Hungarian national team performed poorly during the Second
World War, which was the direct result of war conditions and the
unprofessional administration of the Hungarian FA. [53]
The FA management, selected by the Nazi government, depleted the
budget and reduced Hungary’s football relations with other countries. By
1944, Hungarian football was at its lowest point. The war had destroyed
most of the facilities, the government and the FA were running out of
resources, the FA could not organize a single international game in 1944
and the Axis powers were about to be defeated. In 1945, the Soviet Red
Army ‘liberated’ Hungary and plans began to be forged for a new and,
perhaps, better Hungary and Hungarian football. Handler writes that
‘despite the extensive damage the war had caused to sport facilities and
the loss of some of the most outstanding athletes and sport leaders, sport
in Hungary experienced a quick-paced reconstruction and produced
enviable results’. [54]
In fact, sport had been a highly valued commodity for the Horthy
regime before the war. Money had been invested in sport development,
but the realization of many of those improvements had to wait until
after the war. For example, plans for the building of the Népstadion (the
People’s Stadium
now called Ferenc Puskás Stadium) had been
developed under the Horthy regime, but were not carried out until
1948.
The immediate post-war period produced a rapid development under
the aegis of reconstructing and restructuring Hungary’s social and
sporting life. For instance, the management of the Hungarian FA was
reorganized, the professional league was abolished and the national
championship was revitalized. [55] Although only a few internationals
took place
mostly against Austria, which was inherent in the post-war
 Sport in History 303
suspension of international sport, the Hungarian FA made attempts to
improve the quality of Hungarian football. In doing so, the FA produced
strict regulations, forbidding the emigration of footballers and, at the
same time, called upon emigrants to return to the Hungarian leagues.
[56]
Additionally, in 1947, the first official sport-related gambling institu-
tion was established under the name of ‘Toto’. This institution served
three fundamental purposes. It created the excitement of a ‘flutter’;
offered a chance for people to win a reasonable sum of money; and
provided the state with a budget that could be devoted to the
development of sport. Hence, Handler argues, ‘within three years after
the end of the fighting Hungary was well on its way to becoming a true
superpower in the world of sport, a showcase of proletarian achievement’.
[57] Even though Handler overestimates the volume of this growth and
Hungary’s role in the world of sport, this development was the direct
result of the high value the political system attributed to sport.
One of the repercussions of the Second World War was that new
political views began to emerge and have an impact upon not only the
development of Hungarian football but all Hungary. In 1947, post-war
cooperation between the Soviet Union and the Western powers became
unstable and a new type of international conflict, the Cold War, began. As
a corollary, the Hungarian Communist Party, under the leadership of
Mátyás Rákosi, seized command of the country and opened a new chapter
in the life of Hungary in general and football in particular. In October
1947, the non-Communist political representatives were asked to
cooperate with a new coalition government or leave the country. In
1949, the government held a single-list election and then ratified a Soviet-
style constitution. ‘Hungary became a carbon copy of the Soviet Union’.
[58] Lendvai explains this shift in political regimes as follows:

The uncertain fate of more than half a million prisoners of war, the
abduction of tens of thousands of civilians to forced labour, the Soviet
supported Communist offensive to undermine and finally destroy the
young Hungarian democracy, contributed in the ensuing months and
years to a feeling [of despair] among of the large and later
overwhelming majority of Hungarians that with the new era under
the red star a new bondage had begun. [59]

The next section will detail the ways in which the Rákosi regime exploited
and restructured football.
304 G. Molnar

Sovietized football
Football was a state affair under the Communist regime in Hungary. [60]
A similar approach was present in all Communist nation states which felt
marginalized and/or subordinate to both the West and the Soviet Union.
But Communist countries also used football to symbolize their cultural
and societal equality or superiority to Western cultures. Like sport in
general, football was supposed to represent a symbolic fight between
Communist and capitalist ideologies. [61] Since Communist countries
could not match Western economic conditions, they used international
sports events to try to prove their ideological superiority. Communist
countries put significant energy into developing their sports performance
and sport, similar to other spheres of the society, was increasingly
centrally driven by a ‘win-at-all-cost’ ideology. [62] Athletes were under
strict governmental control as they were to represent their country
abroad, and the Soviet-sympathizing government did not want any of its
athletes to misbehave or defect.
To represent the countries of the Communist bloc was a sensitive issue
because athletes symbolized not only their own countries but Commun-
ism as well. The Communist bloc continually wanted to demonstrate the
superiority of disciplined, obedient and machine-like athletes, the very
products of Communist ideologies, over ‘frivolous’ capitalist societies
through grandiose sport achievements. Perhaps this was the reason why
the Hungarian FA, under strong governmental pressure, took extremely
seriously the fact that Ferenc Puskás knocked out two Bulgarian players in
1948 during an international match. Puskás had to apologize in public for
what he had done and was banned from international matches for one
year. [63] It has also been observed that before the famous 1953 England-
Hungary football match the president of the Hungarian FA (Sándor
Barcs) was put under considerable pressure since he literally had to
promise the government that the national team would beat the English.
[64] This ‘betrayed a degree of paranoia but also reflected the anxieties of
a regime that had come to appreciate the propaganda value of its national
sporting heroes’. [65]
Before Communism each football team had its unique social connota-
tion and groups of fans. Football teams, along with other spheres of the
society, were not religion- or class-neutral. [66] Whether representing a
religious group, a political view, a social class or a geographic region,
football teams had always been endowed with special meanings in
Hungary. [67] For instance, to put it simply, Jewish citizens rooted for
MTK and Catholics for FTC. [68]
 Sport in History 305
Hungarian club football was able to preserve its neutrality from the
party until 1948, but under the Rákosi system, after 1950, all the football
teams were brutally Sovietized. [69] Communism visibly left its ‘red
fingerprint’ all over the development of Hungarian football. Clubs’ social
meanings, connotations, financial and fan bases were taken away and they
became the teams of certain ministries or industries. [70] For example,
the Communist Party viewed FTC as the principal problem because of its
right-wing nationalistic sentiments, but did not officially and publicly
want to disband the team and create martyrs. Instead, its name was
changed and its players replaced.
The Communist regime stripped all the Hungarian football teams of
their original identities and clothed them with new, Soviet-friendly ones,
which was a subtle way of establishing a new regime. It can be argued that
a football team has its own identity, which is carried by its name, colours,
players and supporters. [71] When a team loses these parts of its identity,
it loses some of its local social significance. Thus, in the case of FTC, at
first the name changed to Catering Workers’ Trade Union. Later, in 1951,
the name was modified to Kinizsi and the green and white team colours
were changed to red
the colour of the Communist Party
and white.
According to Riordan, Soviet football went through a similar process in
the mid-1920s. [72]
The party not only restructured football teams but created new ones by
taking away the best players of other teams. This was how Honvéd
(defender of the home land) came into existence in 1950 and became the
favourite team of the Communist system. [73] The name of this team
indicates that it was under the control of the Ministry of War, which had
great political significance. [74] The calculations of the party seemed to
progress with Honvéd because it was capable of representing the
superiority of Communism against capitalist societies and, in this way,
could function as an aid in stabilizing the party’s power. [75] At the same
time, this team, and sport in general, was supposed to be the showcase of
social mobility under Communism. Hence it could be argued that the
political leaders were trying to create and maintain a pseudo-meritocratic
society where, seemingly, everyone had the chance for social mobility if
they worked hard and possessed the right abilities regardless of their
family background.
Under the governance of this regime, a way of obtaining social mobility
was to become an outstanding athlete. That is, it was possible to change
someone’s social position through sport without having to have a certain
level of education as long as sport performances honoured Hungary and
the party. For instance, it was accepted that excellent athletes, sometimes
306 G. Molnar

illiterate ones, could be appointed to highly privileged military or political

positions:

Privileged status and the fringe benefits
well-paying jobs that

provided generous amounts of time off for training and competition,
guaranteed admission to universities, comfortable housing, favoured
treatment at customs upon return from foreign trips and the like
as
well as the adulation of the sport loving nation were inducements that
few could or wanted to resist. [76]

Puskás was the epitome of this system through which the humble son of
the proletariat could become a national celebrity and military officer
based solely on his outstanding sport performances. [77] Perhaps this was
one of the reasons why 147,000 football players were officially registered
in Hungary between 1953 and 1956. [78] (This is almost double
compared to the number of currently officially registered footballers in
Hungary.)
In addition to this, each football team went through a fundamental
alteration in its management. All football teams were subordinated to
various Communist leaders who were in high-ranking political positions.
[79] The Communist regime thus could effectively supervise at first hand
the proper ideological functioning of all the important football teams
and sports organizations. This phenomenon first occurred in Budapest
and then slowly started filtering into the provinces. Most of the country
teams had to adopt Communist-sympathizer names and colours. Thus
their old, non-Communist identities and names were changed to ones
that could easily be associated with dominant party ideologies. [80] (The
same changes can be observed in the Soviet Union regarding the
restructuring of football teams. As a proof of Hungary’s Sovietization, a
similar pattern emerged between the way the Soviet Union and Hungary
organized sporting life and what sport meant to people in these
countries.) [81]
The Communist system was fundamentally centralized and preferred
the centre to the periphery, which reflected the rank order of football
teams in the first division. In the Communist epoch there were fourteen
teams in the first division (eight provincial and six capital teams) but it
hardly ever happened that a non-Budapest team achieved a high position
in the league table. The statistical data provided by Komáromi depict how
the control of the Communist Party over the outcome of the football
championship decreased as Communism began to weaken and football
started to lose its political importance. [82] For instance, between the
Second World War and the Kádár system the best position a provincial
 Sport in History 307
team could achieve was fifth place (Dorog in 1950 and 1955). Later, after
the second half of the 1970s, Videoton (1975
6) were able to achieve
second place in the championship. In the 1980s, when Communism began
to lose its power in Hungary and the party became less able to manipulate
matches, the number of provincial teams in high positions increased. For
example, Rába ETO won the championship in the 1981
2 and 1982
3
seasons. This analysis illustrates the degree to which sport and politics
were interconnected in Hungary under Communism.
The government also invested a large sum of money in building new
and renovating old stadiums. This development occurred in the first half
of the 1950s when the government updated most of the stadiums used by
first division teams. For instance, during this period Hungary possessed
one of the most modern and most equipped stadiums in Europe, the
Népstadion. However, it can be argued that the major reason for
reconstructing these sport buildings was to be able to lure more people
into football through which the regime could increase its capacity
to influence a larger part of Hungarian society with Communist
propaganda. [83]
The government put a significant effort into maintaining a good
national team that could represent Hungary abroad and achieve out-
standing results at the international level. Taylor and Jamrich are correct
when they state that ‘under the Communist regime . . . the national team
carried a high priority with the Party and its officials’. [84] This was the
direct consequence of the centralizing endeavours of the state, and, in fact,
‘in 1951, the state extended its grip on virtually all aspects of social and
cultural life’. [85]
Interestingly, in 1954, the cultivation of football and the nurturing of
the national football team backfired on the party and almost led to a
formal rebellion. [86] The turmoil was fuelled by the fact that the
Hungarian national football team had been very successful. In 1952, the
‘Magic Magyars’ had won the Olympic Games. One year later they had
defeated the English national team on its home turf, which had never been
accomplished by any Continental team before. [87] This chain of success
unexpectedly broke in the final of the 1954 Football World Cup when
Hungary lost to West Germany. This cup final is surrounded by various
myths and explanations. However, the most feasible and logical explana-
tion is that the Hungarian team was exhausted due to physically
demanding matches against Brazil (the ‘Battle of Berne’) and Uruguay;
Puskás was suffering from injury; the German coach, Josef Herberger, was
a strategic mastermind; and a rested and very skilled powerful German
team beat the Hungarians. [88] This event created an odd situation which
308 G. Molnar

is called ‘the boomerang-effect’. [89] The disappointed and furious

football fans, driven by their bitterness over the defeat, provoked the
first rebellion against the Communist regime. The party decided to cover
up the rebellion instead of taking reprisals against it. This was the first
time that football as a propaganda tool had slipped out of the Communist
government’s control and, though only for a short while, it stopped
serving the political goals of the regime. Although this rebellion was
probably one of the harbingers of the revolution that broke out two years
later, it would be inaccurate to claim that Hungary losing the World Cup
directly triggered the events of 1956. [90]
Even after the 1954 World Cup, the Hungarian national team
maintained a high level of performance which was only interrupted in
1956 by the break-up of the team when some of its players defected. All in
all, after 1956, Hungary had only a residual team of ‘Magic Magyars’ left
that had to be reorganized to prolong Hungary’s football prominence.

The years of subtle manoeuvres

After the 1956 revolution, the ‘Kádár system’ replaced the ‘Rákosi era’, but
still kept some of the peculiarities of the previous regime in terms of using
football for propaganda purposes. Regardless of the similarities between
these two political establishments such as a strong sense of centralization,
Sovietization and spreading of Communist dogma, Kádár took an
idiosyncratic approach to governing the country and organizing football.
While Rákosi governed Hungary, he openly endeavoured to create (and
created) a totalitarian system. [91] By contrast, Kádár realized that this
sort of leadership had not been successful in Hungary and therefore
adopted a different approach that could be described as pseudo-
social-pluralism. That is, ‘the relative autonomy of individuals and
institutions increased in return for political indifference and obedience’.
[92] In the case of sport in general and football in particular, the Kádár
era ‘gave way to a more sophisticated sport policy manipulating with
subtler and more indirect manoeuvres’. [93]
Kádár realized what had led to the fall of the Rákosi regime and to the
1956 revolution and came to understand that an openly autocratic system
could not function in Hungarian society without sporadic rebellions and
recurring underground resistance. [94] He therefore decided virtually to
get rid of the Soviet yoke so as to establish consolidation. One of the
immediate actions of the regime was to reinstate the original names and
colours of football clubs that had been Sovietized. Also, provincial clubs
began to gain more opportunities to restore, preserve and express their
 Sport in History 309
local/regional flavour and to become more competitive in the league. It
was one of the peculiarities of the Kádár era that provincial teams
achieved higher places in the first division. [95] Kádár paid significant
attention to the FTC fans as they represented the largest cohesive football
fan group in the country. Hadas argues that:

It can be taken as a subtle indicator of the process of consolidation that

Fradi [FTC] won the championship in 1963, the very year that many of
the political prisoners jailed after 1956 were released. It is not
accidental that the fans of the winners chanted: The champion is
Ferencvaros, the top man is Kádár János! [96]

In addition to this politically advantageous situation, as another way of

neutralizing FTC fans, the FTC stadium was rebuilt in 1974, the largest
football investment in the 1960s and 1970s. Regardless of the above
mentioned footballing provisions and football-related reconstructions,
football itself gradually began to lose political significance. In order to
understand this political decline of football, it is necessary to consider the
unique constellation of three major factors that facilitated this change in
Kádárian Hungary.
One of these was the consolidating political and societal system that
decreasingly required the presence of football as a means of disguising
political affairs. People lived in safe and stable, but still somewhat
restricted, conditions that began to reflect the attributes of ‘consumer
socialism’. [97] Differently put, ‘football’s function as a legitimating factor
for the regime lost much of its weight with the rise of living standards’.
[98] Another aspect of this change was the fading of the Cold War, which
further reduced the international importance of sport in general, and
football in particular, for most Communist countries as an indicator of
ideological superiority. Hadas observes that ‘in a more peaceful interna-
tional climate there was less justification for investments effected to
express symbolic superiority’, [99] and thus the regime paid less attention
to football. Finally, at an early stage, Kádár recognized the double-edged
nature of football and treated it with care as ‘spontaneity is an irreducible
element of any sporting competition’. [100] Hence, because sports and the
outcomes of sports events could never be fully controlled, ‘the sporting
world proved ill suited to be a precise instrument of the Party and the
state’. [101] Kádár understood that football had backfired for the Rákosi
regime as a weapon to help social consolidation, and therefore as soon as
Kádár could not politically take advantage of it, he simply but
surreptitiously parted from football. In the first instance, this action of
the state may seem as something football could have benefited from.
310 G. Molnar

However, a closer look at the fiscal structure of Communist Hungary in

this period sheds light on why this was the beginning of the degradation
of Hungarian football.
As the political function of football declined and football as an
institution became less centrally driven, the state gradually withdrew
funds. Football was sentenced to a slow decline. According to Hadas,

If football did not seem so important to government then it could not

expect to receive high priority investments. In other words, the
functional weight of football was in inverse proportion with its growing
autonomy, and its inner layout became more and more determined by
the power relations of local and even personal interests. [102]

Since the private sector was virtually non-existent under state socialism,
the stratum that could have provided alternate funding for football was
simply not present. [103] Although the trade and industry reform of the
late 1960s created a novel economic environment, which was fundamen-
tally driven by a Western-type supply-and-demand-oriented market
economy, these progressive financial provisions lasted only for a few
years (1968
73) and then the original, conservative economic system was
restored. [104] Hence football became neglected and began to experience
difficulties that were present in the Kádár era, but not as visible as they
later grew to be. [105]
The political and economic consolidation that partially led to the
decline of Hungarian football was conterminous with the disintegration of
the roots of Communism in the Eastern Bloc. The USSR found itself in an
odd situation because it was simultaneously under internal and external
political and financial pressure. The USSR did not (want to) foresee the
significance of the impact of these problems on Communism, and thus
could not reduce any of the sources of tension. Moreover, the way the
USSR handled its foreign affairs, for example, by annexing independent
nation states such as Afghanistan, did not help maintain unity within the
Communist bloc. This aggressive integration policy provoked nationalist
sentiments and led the annexed nations to rebel. Finally, in the late 1980s,
these tensions and economic defects led to the demise of the ‘strong
bastion’ of Communism.

Transformative conditions
In 1989, the Communist regime collapsed in Hungary, leaving the country
with obsolete economic and social conditions, which led to financial
instability in all areas of Hungary in the 1990s. [106] Sports clubs lost a
 Sport in History 311
significant part of their state support and had to find sponsors in order to
maintain their existence. Even today, ‘organized sport in [Middle] Eastern
Europe faces the same geopolitical and economic challenges as these
societies as a whole’. [107] Hungarian sporting life and Hungary itself
have had to be recreated to survive post-Communist conditions and to
preserve long-established national traditions. [108] This created new and
unpredictable footballing circumstances through the modification and
partial integration of Western-type sponsor-sport club relationships,
resulting in hybrid ways of organizing the Hungarian sports market.
[109] Non-the-less, it is to be noted that this period (1990-2004)
represents a key transition for Hungary: shifting from communism to
capitalism and from the USSR to the EU.
In the post-Communist transition, despite the efforts of the Hungarian
FA, football could not be revitalized. Neither could it regain its
international or regional significance. The Hungarian FA, often with
some politicians involved, attempted to improve the performance of the
national team, which included appointing new head coaches seventeen
times and FA presidents ten times, between 1986 and 2004. [110]
Hammond has observed of the Hungarian national team that ‘For years it
had resembled a merry-go-round. Different players and managers stepped
on and off, but still it kept going around in circles, never getting
anywhere.’ [111]
A professional football league was also launched in the 1999
2000
season, initially including eighteen clubs, but ‘the financial plight of the
country’s first division clubs intensified to the extent that by the end of
the campaign as many as four of the 18 teams . . . had either been forced
out of business or driven underground to lower leagues’. [112]
Additionally, in order to revive grassroots football, a centrally financed
youth development programme was organized and named after one of the
‘Magic Magyars’ (Péter Bozsik). These provisions did not improve
the state and international reputation of Hungarian football. Neither
did the intrusion of the Minister of Youth and Sport (Tamás Deutsch)
into the running of the Hungarian FA, who suspended the FA president
(Attila Kovács) in 1999. [113] By virtue of this, a considerable degree of
tension accumulated between the government and the FA, which grew so
intense that FIFA had to interfere. [114] As a result of this, a new FA
administration had to be elected, which happened on 9 August 1999.
Since then, the number of legal issues has decreased and the Hungarian FA
has been in a state of consolidation. Nevertheless, the problems of
Hungarian football still await solutions.
312 G. Molnar

The presence of these issues could simply be interpreted as the

materialization and maturation of those problems that first appeared in
the Kádár era. That is, ‘Hungarian football did not die when the change of
political system appeared; it had died before’. [115] In fact, the record of
the Hungarian national team indicates that this decline began in the 1970s
and, although there were better years to come, it has not yet been
reversed. For example, the Hungarian national team did not qualify for
the World Cup for the first time in 1970. This was repeated in 1974, and,
although Hungary managed to qualify for the next three World Cups, they
were eliminated after the first round. The decline of Hungarian football
becomes even more visible when one realizes that the national team has
not qualified for the World Cup since 1986 and for the European
Championship since 1972. [116]
Nevertheless, while not diminishing the impact of Communism on sport
in general and football in particular, this argument is only partially correct
and in order to completely reveal the path that has led Hungarian football to
its present stage, the growing global popularity of football has also to be
taken into consideration. Communism is not solely responsible for the
decline of Hungarian football. That is, aside from an underdeveloped
football infrastructure and the low social status of sports and athletes with
which Communism left Hungary, one must also bear in mind that
nowadays football is much more popular and there are more nations
involved in international football competitions than in the 1950s and 1960s.
[117] To put it succinctly, the rest of the world caught up with Hungarian
football in the 1970s and 1980s and it has not yet revived its international
competitiveness. Moreover, it has been observed that in the years of post-
Communist transition, the ‘constant struggle of residual and emerging
practices created new and unpredictable social and footballing circum-
stances . . . which partially because of the lack of pro-active behaviour on
the part of Hungarian football clubs and the regional economic, political
and social conditions, came as a surprise to most involved.’ [118] It can be
argued that a part of this transformative process is deeply embedded in
contemporary football-related migrations, with foreign players moving to
Hungary and Hungarian footballers playing abroad. This is, however, a
preliminary observation and further study is required.

Concluding thoughts
This article has attempted to introduce the essential phases of Hungarian
football development. Some aspects of the ways in which regional and
domestic social, political and cultural circumstances have influenced and
 Sport in History 313
transformed Hungarian football have been briefly discussed. It has been
also shown that football has always been part of wider socio-historical
processes in various forms. Football has been used for perpetuating
violence-related hegemonic values, gaining larger independence from
oppression, re-establishing broken post-war diplomatic relations, convey-
ing political propaganda and ideological superiority and stabilizing social
conditions.
Once football had fulfilled most of the expectations of the various
regimes, it virtually lost its political significance in Hungary in recent
times, which is perhaps due to the fact that Hungarian people are wary of
the role football played under Communism. On the other hand, this
could be simply a result of the poor football performance at both national
and international levels, which has led people withdrawing their attention
from football.
Furthermore, there can be detected a new attitude on the part of
Hungarian politicians towards football. It became one of the fashion
trends of the 1990s that politicians openly expressed their indifference or
aversion to football. This approach was supposed to demonstrate the
ideological separation of contemporary Hungarian politicians from the
past. It can be argued that this approach has been used to reinforce new
ways of political thinking in times when it was hard to find other means
to do so. For example, one of the governing parties of the 1990s (the
Alliance of Young Democrats) explicitly showed support for football by
launching football stadium refurbishments and a youth development
programme (the ‘Bozsik Programme’), but then failed to be re-elected.
Nevertheless, it would be an overstatement to note that the failure of this
political party was solely caused by its outlook on football, as there were
other mishaps; but football was definitely part of it.
In conclusion, it can be observed that football has remained subject to
political manipulation, only the angle of presentation has changed. This
has created unprecedented and dichotomous social attitudes to football
and to any football-related financial investment. This has also constructed
mostly derogatory social stereotypes about football-related business
relations, football managements and footballers per se. Hungarian football
has not been able to rid itself of these general perceptions, and as long as
these stereotypes persist it is hard to predict any future progress.

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Joseph Maguire, Alan Bairner, Arpad v. Klima and the
reviewer for their advice.
314 G. Molnar

Notes
[1] József Hoffer and Zoltán Thaly, ‘A Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség története’
[History of the Hungarian Football Federation], in Zoltán Thaly, ed., 100 éves a
Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség, 1901-2000 [‘The Hungarian Football Association
is 100 years old, 1901
2000’] (???, 2000), pp. 15
52; and Andrew Handler,
From the ghetto to the games: Jewish athletes in Hungary (???, 1985), p. 52.
[2] János Komáromi, A magyar labdarúgás története: A kezdetektõl napjainking
[‘History of Hungarian football: from the beginning to now’] [CD] (???, 2003).
[3] Sport Museum, ‘Százéves a magyar foci, 1897
1997’ [‘Hungarian football is
one hundred years old, 1897
1997’], available at www.sportmuzeum.hu/,
accessed 7 June 2004.
[4] Hoffer and Thaly, ‘A Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség története’.
[5] See ibid., p. 16.
[6] Miklós Hadas, A modern férfi születése [‘The birth of the modern man’] (???,
2003).
[7] Ibid., and Komáromi, A magyar labdarúgás története .
[8] See www.ftc.hu, accessed ???
[9] Handler, From the ghetto to the games .
[10] Ibid., pp. 40
1.
[11] Ibid.
[12] See Norbert Elias, The civilising process (Oxford, 1939/2000).
[13] Handler, From the ghetto to the games , p. 40.
[14] See Eric Dunning, ‘Football in the civilizing process’, in Jens Bangsbo, ed.,
Soccer and science . (???, 2000), pp. 17
33.
[15] Handler, From the ghetto to the games , p. 53.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] See Elias, The civilising process , p. 270.
[19] See Hoffer and Thaly, ‘A Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség története’,
[20] James Riordan, Soviet sport: Background to the Olympics (Oxford, 1980).
[21] See Komáromi, A magyar labdarúgás története .
[22] Ibid.
[23] Sport Museum, ‘Százéves a magyar foci’.
[24] See Hoffer and Thaly, ‘A Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség története’.
[25] Paul Lendvai, The Hungarians: 1000 years of victory in defeat (???, 2003).
[26] Hadas, A modern férfi születése , p. 303.
[27] Francz von Loher,???, cited in Lendvai, The Hungarians , p. 348.
[28] See John Lukacs, Budapest 1900: A historical portrait of a city and its culture (???,
1988).
[29] Sport Museum, ‘Százéves a magyar foci’.
[30] See Komáromi, A magyar labdarúgás története .
[31] Handler, From the ghetto to the games , p. 56.
[32] Komáromi, A magyar labdarúgás története .
[33] Ibid.
[34] Ibid.
[35] See Tamás Dénes, Pál Peterdi, Zoltán Rochy, and József Selmeci, Kalandozó
magyar labdarúgók [‘Itinerant Hungarian footballers’] (???, 2000); and Péter
 Sport in History 315
Szegedi, ‘A magyar futball európai expanziója’ [‘The European expansion of
Hungarian football’], Szociologiai Szemle , 2 (2003), pp. 3
41.
[36] Szegedi, ‘A magyar futball európai expanziója’.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Sport Museum, ‘Százéves a magyar foci’.
[40] Hoffer and Thaly, ‘A Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség története’.
[41] Sport Museum, ‘Százéves a magyar foci’.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Hoffer and Thaly, ‘A Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség története’.
[45] See Komáromi, A magyar labdarúgás története .
[46] Hoffer and Thaly, ‘A Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség története’, p. 27.
[47] Miklós Hadas, ‘Football and social identity: The case of Hungary in the
twentieth century’, Sport in History, 20 (2) (2000), pp. 43
66.
[48] For a full discussion see Lendvai, The Hungarians , pp. 329
47.
[49] Miklós Hadas and Viktor Karády, ‘Futball és társadalmi identitás: adalékok a
magyar futball társadalmi jelentéstartalmainak történelmi vizsgálatához’ [‘Foot-
ball and social identity: Admixtures to the historical examination of the
Hungarian football’s societal connotations’], Replika , 17
18 (1) (1995).
[50] Hadas, ‘Football and social identity’.
[51] Hoffer and Thaly, ‘A Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség története’.
[52] See Rogan Taylor and Klara Jamrich, Puskas on Puskas: The life and times of a
footballing legend (London, 1998).
[53] Komáromi, A magyar labdarúgás története ; Hoffer and Thaly, ‘A Magyar
Labdarúgó Szövetség története’.
[54] Handler, From the ghetto to the games , p. 105.
[55] Hoffer and Thaly, ‘A Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség története’.
[56] Ibid.
[57] Handler, From the ghetto to the games , p. 105.
[58] Ibid., p. 104.
[59] Lendvai, The Hungarians , p. 429.
[60] See Hadas and Karády, ‘Futball és társadalmi identitás’; and Gyozo Molnar,
‘Globalization: The structural changes of the Hungarian sport life after the
Communist regime’ (master’s thesis, Miami University, 2002).
[61] Taylor and Jamrich, Puskas on Puskas .
[62] Peter Beck, ‘Losing prestige on and off the field: England versus Hungary,
1953
54’, Sport in History, 23 (2) (2004), pp. 10
26; Taylor and Jamrich,
Puskas on Puskas .
[63] Tibor Hámori, Puskás Öcsi: a leghı´resebb magyar története [‘Puskás Öcsi: history
of the most famous Hungarian’] (???, 2001).
[64] Taylor and Jamrich, Puskas on Puskas .
[65] Ronald Kowalski and Dilwyn Porter, ‘England’s world turned upside down?
Magical Magyars and British football’, Sport in History, 23 (2) (2004), p. 35.
[66] See Hadas, ‘Football and social identity’.
[67] Hadas and Karády, ‘Futball és társadalmi identitás’.
[68] Cf. Hadas, A modern férfi születése , p. 296.
[69] Sport Museum, ‘Százéves a magyar foci’.
316 G. Molnar
[70] Hadas and Karády, ‘Futball és társadalmi identitás’.
[71] Hadas, ‘Football and social identity’.
[72] Riordan, Soviet sport .
[73] Hadas and Karády, ‘Futball és társadalmi identitás’.
[74] See ibid.
[75] For statistics see Komáromi, A magyar labdarúgás története .
[76] Handler, From the ghetto to the games , p. 106.
[77] See Hámori, Puskás Öcsi .
[78] Z. Antal, T. Sass and I. Laszló, A magyar sport kézikönyve [‘Handbook of
Hungarian sport’] (???, 1972).
[79] Hadas and Karády, ‘Futball és társadalmi identitás’.
[80] Ibid.
[81] For details see John Sugden and Alan Tomlinson, ‘Football: Ressentiment and
resistance in the break-up of the former Soviet Union’, Culture, Sport, Society,
3 (2) (Summer 2000), pp. 89
108.
[82] Komáromi, A magyar labdarúgás története .
[83] Molnar, ‘Globalization’.
[84] Taylor and Jamrich, Puskas on Puskas , p. 41.
[85] Ibid., p. 39.
[86] Ibid.
[87] Norman Fox, Prophet or traitor? The Jimmy Hogan story (???, 2003).
[88] Gyozo Molnar, ‘A beginner’s guide to Hungarian football’, Soccer History, 13
(Winter 2005
6), p. 23.
[89] See Hadas and Karády, ‘Futball és társadalmi identitás’.
[90] See Molnar, ‘A beginner’s guide’ and cf. Stefan Lázár, A vereség forradalma [‘The
revolution of the defeat’] (???, 2003).
[91] See Lendvai, The Hungarians .
[92] Hadas, ‘Football and social identity’, p. 58.
[93] Ibid.
[94] See János Kádar, For a socialist Hungary: Speeches, articles, interviews, 1968
1972 ,
trans. G. Gulyás and K. Ravasz (????, 1974).
[95] Hadas, ‘Football and social identity’.
[96] Ibid., p. 59.
[97] See ibid.
[98] Ibid., p. 60.
[99] Ibid.
[100] Robert Edelman, Serious fun: A history of spectator sport in the USSR (Oxford,
1993), p. 11.
[101] Ibid.
[102] Hadas, ‘Football and social identity’, p. 60.
[103] See Adam Zwass, The economies of eastern Europe: In a time of change (???,
1984).
[104] Ibid.
[105] For examples see Mike Hammond, ed., The European football yearbook (???,
1999).
[106] Peter Meusburger, ‘The role of knowledge in the socio-economic transforma-
tion of Hungary in the 1990s’, in Peter Meusburger and Heike Jons, eds.,
Transformations in Hungary: Essays in economy and society (???, 2001), pp. 1
37.
 Sport in History 317
[107] Richard Crampton, ‘Foreword’, The International Journal of the History of Sport ,
21 (5) (2004), p. 679.
[108] Cf. Ibid.
[109] Molnar, ‘Globalization’.
[110] See Crampton, ‘Foreword’; Hoffer and Thaly, ‘A Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség
története’; and Miklós Bocsák, Miért haldoklik a magyar futball? [‘Why is
Hungarian football dying?’] (????, 2001).
[111] Mike Hammond, ed., The European football yearbook (???, 1991), p. 410.
[112] Mike Hammond, ed., The European football yearbook (???, 2001), p. 517.
[113] For details and electronic forms of the original documents see: http://
www.xhvg.hu/archivum/ujsagcikkek9902/990200_mlsz_index.htm, accessed ???
[114] Hoffer and Thaly, ‘A Magyar Labdarúgó Szövetség története’.
[115] László Bartus, Varga Zoli diszidál [‘Zoli Varga defects’] (Budapest, 2000), p. 25.
[116] Sport Museum, ‘Százéves a magyar foci’.
[117] See Gyöngyi Földesi, ‘Social status and mobility of Hungarian elite athletes’, The
International Journal of the History of Sport , 21 (3) (2004), pp. 710
26; and
www.fifa.com
[118] Gyozo Molnar, ‘Mapping migrations: Hungary-related migrations of profes-
sional footballers after the collapse of communism’, Soccer and Society, 7 (4)
(2006), p. 464.

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