Hungarian Stadium Building Program Marches On

New stadiums will be built or reconstructed, as well as the projects currently in progress receive additional funds.

The judgement of football was always mixed in Hungary. Given its decades-long unsuccessfulness, many people say that supporting football is pointless. Most professional football players’ salary is ridiculously high compared to their results. On the other hand, others point out that without sufficient funds there will be no success for Hungarian football. At the same time, there is no understanding in what should be supported by the government: whether the youth academies, the professional teams or the infrastructure should receive extra money. In this article, I will examine the government support of the latter, namely the stadium building and reconstruction projects.

First, let’s start with a little historical overview. In 2000, when Orbán Viktor was prime minister for the first time, there was a plan for reconstructing stadiums. For a three years run, with HUF 12.7 billion government support 38 stadiums would have been reconstructed. The reconstructions were important because Hungary planned on hosting the Euro Cup in 2004 ( eventually Portugal got the right). The  project was mostly unsuccessful, only a half of the planned reconstructions was finished. In the following years, only Győr and Miskolc managed to renovate their stadiums.

The current wave of stadium reconstructions started under the second prime ministry of Orbán Viktor. What really boosted the process was the possibility to support public benefit organisations (such as theaters or sort clubs) with the corporate income tax( TAO). From the TAO money football received the biggest part. The total amount that was allocated to football was HUF 6 billion in 2012, compared to the HUF 0,68 and 0,48 billion for basketball and handball. Within the football sector, Felcsút received HUF 2,8 billion which is a way ahead of Debrecen’s  HUF 0,52 UTE’s 0,33 or Disgyőr 0,28 billion. FTC, Honvéd and győr has got even less money. It is important to note, however, that from that list only Felcsút, FTC and Debrecen will have a completely new, modern stadium. Now it is time examine the the stadium reconstructions individually.

Felcsút

A small town in Dunántúl (Transdanubia), with barely 1500 inhabitant. Still a  new stadium will be built here, for about HUF 3,8 billion, with the capacity of 3500 people. The arena will serve as home ground for Puskás Akadémia, a team which used to be a youth academy for Videoton FC, but after winning the second league of Hungary, they had the right to join the top division. (Of course, this would be quite impossible given the fact that Puskás Akadémia was the reserve team of Videoton, so they had to start the 2013/2014 season as an individual team.) The cost does not seem to be extremely high, although the cost of one seat will be HUF 1,085 million, which is considerably more than at other stadiums. Truth be told, the mini stadium will be of top class: it will have an UEFA rating of four, thus, it will be suitable for international matches. Makovetz Imre and his students made the certainly spectacular plans. The stadium will be finally put into use in April.