https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690219891656
International Review for the
Sociology of Sport
2021, Vol. 56(1) 133­–148
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1012690219891656
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Radical right populist politics
in Hungary: Reinventing the
Magyars through sport
Gyozo Molnar
University of Worcester, UK
Stuart Whigham
Oxford Brookes University, UK
Abstract
Given the contemporary growth of ‘populist’ political parties and movements in a number of
highly developed democratic states in Europe and North America, there has been a resurgence in
academic interest around the various causes for the groundswell of support for political populism.
Given this broader political context, this paper explores the interconnection between sport and
populist politics in Hungary, with a particular emphasis on the appropriation of sport by ‘right-wing’
populist political actors. In particular, this paper will examine the politics–sport interconnection by
discussing how the Prime Minister of Hungary, Victor Orbán, uses football, and sport more broadly,
and the ways in which the Hungarian government have attempted to reinvent a strong nation and
national identity through sport and related political populism. These attempts have been influenced
by the interaction between forces of Westernisation and the country’s continuing post-communist
transition, with the view to (re)inventing the Hungarian nation.
Keywords
football, Hungary, nationalism, popular politics, sport
Introduction
In light of the contemporary growth of ‘populist’ political parties and movements in a
number of highly developed democratic states in Europe and North America, there has
been a resurgence in academic interest around the various causes for the groundswell of
support for political populism (Brubaker, 2020; Judis, 2016; Moffitt and Tormey, 2014;
Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2012). A number of contemporary political developments in
Corresponding author:
Gyozo Molnar, University of Worcester, Henwick Grove, Worcester WR2 6AJ, UK.
Email: g.molnar@worc.ac.uk
891656IRS0010.1177/1012690219891656International Review for the Sociology of SportMolnar and Whigham
research-article2019
Research Article
134	 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 56(1)
various international contexts have, thus, triggered a renewed emphasis on the importance
of populist ideological positions. Such developments could include the election of
President Donald Trump in the United States of America (Eiermann, 2016; Kazin, 2016;
Kellner, 2016), the success of the ‘Leave’ campaign in the British referendum on
European Union membership (Clarke and Newman, 2017; Freeden, 2017; Gusterson,
2017; Inglehart and Norris, 2016), the unexpected popularity of the Brexit Party in the
2019 UK European Elections, and the emergence of secessionist nationalism movements
in ‘stateless’ nations such as Scotland and Catalonia (Carbonell, 2018; Duerr, 2015;
Guibernau, 2014; Keating, 1996). The mounting of populist politics within the European
context is evidenced by the growth of ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’ populist parties in
Spain, Greece, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Hungary, amongst others
(Mols and Jetten, 2016; Wodak, 2015; Wodak et al., 2013; Yilmaz, 2012).
Whilst there are similarities as regards the reasons why populist political parties have
come to the fore across Europe, there are also nation-based idiosyncrasies which need to
be considered. For instance, Central and Eastern European countries have experienced
dissimilar political, economic and cultural development trajectories in comparison with
Western European ones. Nevertheless, in all of these regions of Europe, the growing
presence of populist political parties is observable (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worldeurope-36130006).
Given this broader political context, in this paper we explore populist
politics in Hungary, specifically the interconnection between sport and state, with a particular
emphasis on the ‘use’ of sport by ‘right-wing’ populist political parties and key
actors. Specifically, we will elaborate on political manoeuvres by Victor Orbán, Prime
Minister of Hungary, with football, and sport, by analysing the ways in which the
Hungarian government have attempted to reinvent a strong nation and national identity
through sport and related political populism. Here we will argue that these attempts have
been influenced by the interaction between forces of Westernisation and the country’s
continuing post-communist transition. Our analysis is informed by existing research and
mass media based evidence around key political and economic transitions which influence
and have influenced the interconnection between sport, political populism and
national identity in the Hungarian context.
Whilst not executing a systematic review, we have conducted an extensive literature
search similar to the procedures outlined in Dehghansai et al. (2017) to identify relevant
academic sources by searching through databases such as SportDiscus, PubMed and
Google Scholar. Having received ethical approval, we used the following search terms to
identify key sources: ‘popular politics’, ‘populism’, ‘popular politics and sport’, ‘popular
politics and Hungary’, ‘populism and Hungary’, and ‘Hungary and national identity
and sport’. Based on the searches a large number of sources were identified, especially
in the area of popular politics and populism. Consequently, we decided to only include
sources that were written in English or in Hungarian, peer reviewed, and deemed key in
relation to popular politics, Hungarian politics, and Hungarian sport and national identity.
These sources construct the foundation of our analysis of popular politics, Hungary
and sport.
In addition to academic articles, we have also used a range of publicly accessible
online mass media sources. To locate relevant web pages, we used Google in English and
origo.hu in Hungarian with the following key words: ‘Hungarian sport and national
identity’, ‘Hungarian sport and popular politics’, ‘Hungarian sport and regime change’
Molnar and Whigham	 135
and ‘Orbán and sport’. As the results of our searches were again extensive, we operationalised
the results through the use of a specific cut-off point, which was after the first
30 links listed by the respective search engines. Out of the sources that met the first criterion,
we only included those which were: (a) directly relevant to the focus of the study;
(b) publicly accessible; and (c) from well-established, credible organisations (e.g. official
websites, government webpages, credible investigative reporting sites). The remaining
sources we then put to a qualitative content analysis (see Bryman, 2015), specifically
focusing on connections between politics, sport, football, Hungary and national identity.
This content analysis, thus, provided the corpus of data and literature sources upon which
we have based our discussion presented in the subsequent sections.
The era of ‘populist’ politics?
The growth of ‘populism’ within politics has rapidly become a central consideration for
contemporary political analysts, with significant attention devoted to it in political sciences
and broader public political debates. Whilst there is general agreement around
populism’s recent significant upsurge, a number of debates have emerged regarding its
specific nature and the causal factors leading to its growth (Bonikowski et al., 2018).
Bonikowski et al. (2018: 1) argued that populism can take:
. . .many forms, spanning continents and cutting across left–right lines. It is often used to
describe both parties of the right. . . that oppose immigration and seek to restore national
sovereignty; and of the left. . . that pit the people against an exploitative economic elite.
Whilst Bonikowski et al. (2018) successfully expressed certain shared understandings
of populism, there remains a disjuncture in their theorisations around both its causes and
nature, indicating the need to consider country-specific socio-political idiosyncrasies
reflective of the ‘impure’ nature of populism (Brubaker, 2020).
In terms of the growth of populism, a number of arguments have emerged. There is
agreement that the recent successes of populism are a by-product of the 2007–2008
global financial crisis and a reaction to the subsequent socio-economic challenges triggered
by global neoliberal economic policies and deregulations (Gusterson, 2017;
Inglehart and Norris, 2016; Salmela and Von Schave, 2017). However, public reaction to
the failures of this neoliberal system did not shift the electorate towards the established
ideological ‘left’. Instead, populist parties exploited public resentment of rising multiculturalism
to blame the immigrant ‘other’ following the 2007–2008 financial crisis, rather
than neoliberal economic policies which had preceded it (Bonikowski et al., 2018;
Fernández-García and Luengo, 2018; Gusterson, 2017; Milačić and Vuković, 2018;
Salmela and Von Schave, 2017; Rooduijn, 2015). In this regard, Salmela and Von Schave
(2017: 587) suggest that:
. . .individual-level emotional responses mediate between macro-level sociocultural and
economic changes, such as globalization, modernization and economic deregulation, and the
micro-level motivation to support right-wing populist parties. . . experienced in post-industrial
societies can transmute through repressed shame into anger, resentment and hatred towards
perceived ‘enemies’ of the self . . .
136	 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 56(1)
Given growing public resentment to the immigrant ‘other’, many Western democracies
have witnessed increased support for right-wing populism which is firmly aligned
with ‘ethnic nationalism’ (Kohn, 1944). Such right-wing conceptualisations of nationalism
place emphasis on collective nationalist sentiments based on shared ethnic and cultural
foundations. This resonates with ‘primordialist’theorisations of the nation, stressing
the cohesive importance of long-term historical roots linked to socio-biological factors
such as ethnicity, bloodline and ‘cultural givens’ such as language, customs and ‘home’
territory (Geertz, 1973; Lefebvre, 1991; Van den Berghe, 1978). Similar arguments
regarding the primacy afforded to these ‘ethnies’ are offered by an ‘ethnosymbolist’
approach to nationalism (Smith, 1986, 2010). Here, the potential impact of the symbolic
elements of nationalist cohesion are underpinned by the social, cultural, political and
emotional attachment which emanates from identification with a particular ‘ethnie’
(Smith, 1986, 2010), thus going beyond Kohn’s dichotomy.
Another agreement regarding the nature of contemporary populist politics is the vilification
of the elites (Bonikowski, 2017; Bonikowski et al., 2018; Fernández-García and
Luengo, 2018; Moffitt and Tormey, 2014; Rooduijn, 2015). Bonikowski (2017: 184)
argues the ‘specific elites targeted by populists vary depending on the populists’ ideological
predilections’, which, therefore, explains the multifarious forms of populist
movements which have emerged across the ‘left–right’ ideological spectrum. However,
specific to right-wing political populism, the ‘elites’ who are held to account for societal
and economic problems tend to be those who have espoused pro-immigration, pro-globalisation
and socially progressive policies, framing these policies as a pursuit of political
self-interest at the expense of the general public. This vilification of moral elites acts
as one element of the ‘political style’ of contemporary populism (Moffitt and Tormey,
2014). Moffitt and Tormey (2014: 387) argue that a focus on the performative elements
of populist politics ‘contextualises populism’s position in the contemporary ‘stylised’
political landscape and brings representation to the forefront of discussions about populism’,
highlighting the self-presentation of populist politicians as an antidote to the
over-stylised, established political actors.
In sum, whilst ‘populism’ remains controversial within contemporary politics, a
degree of agreement has emerged around it. Rooduijn (2015: 5–6) identifies four reasons
for the electoral popularity of such parties in Western Europe: (a) nativist outlook; (b)
tendency to be authoritarian; (c) less satisfied with politics; (d) Euroscepticism. However,
before turning to whether these four reasons are equally applicable to the rise of ‘populism’
in Hungary, we outline some of the ways in which the interconnection between
sport and populist politics have manifested themselves in numerous nations.
Populism, nationalism, right-wing politics and sport
Hoberman (1984) argued in his seminal text on the interconnection between sport and
political ideology that sport was frequently used by political leaders and heads of states
across the ideological spectrum to harness and buttress support for their particular vision
of their ‘nation’. With specific reference to the Cold War era, in which Hoberman was
writing, he noted that his work:
Molnar and Whigham	 137
. . .interprets the political cultures of sport as proxy warriors in a larger ideological conflict
which has pitted Marxist dogma, in its variety, against its two historical adversaries: first,
fascism, and then the postwar non-Communist bloc, which runs the gamut from quasi-fascist
(anti-Marxist) dictatorships to the (anti-Marxist) liberal democracies. (Hoberman, 1984: 6)
Whilst this conceptualisation of sportspeople as ‘proxy warriors’ clearly resonates
with the ideological clash between ‘East’ and ‘West’ in sporting ‘mega-events’ such as
the Olympic Games in the Cold War era (Grix, 2013; Peppard and Riordan, 1993; Roche,
2002), it has also possessed explanatory value for analysing the nature of the interconnection
between sport, politics and the ‘nation’ in various post-Cold War geographic
contexts (Bowes and Bairner, 2018; Cashmore, 2005; Jedlicka, 2018; Merkel, 2009).
The ability of sport to evoke nationalist sentiments and support amongst a nation’s population
has, therefore, unsurprisingly not gone unnoticed by political leaders, autocratic or
democratic alike.
Turning attention more towards the interconnection between ‘right-wing’ political
populism and sporting matters, it can be argued that a number of common patterns have
emerged with regard to the exploitation of sport by politicians on the right. Given that
these political actors tend to espouse the nativist, nationalist and authoritarian principles
identified in Rooduijn’s (2015) account, sporting competitions on the international stage
provide an opportunity for nationalist political actors to express support (or otherwise)
for their nation’s sporting representatives, especially given the symbolic image they portray
to the rest of the world (Allison, 2000; Bairner, 2001, 2015). Unsurprisingly, the
political exploitation of a nation’s sporting success on the global stage by right-wing
politics is the most frequent manifestation of the sport–politics interconnection, with the
victories of the nation’s athletes or teams framed as evidence of the superiority of that
nation’s people or political ideology (Hoberman, 1984).
Oft-cited examples of the exploitation of sport by right-wing, fascist regimes include
Hitler’s use of the 1936 Berlin Olympics (Houlihan, 1994; Mandell, 1971) and the
exploitation of football by Mussolini’s fascist regime in Italy (Kassimeris, 2011b; Scalia,
2009). Similar tactics have also been adopted by more recent authoritarian and/or rightwing
nationalist political leaders, ranging from those who champion sporting successes
to foster nationalist sentiments such as the example of Tudjman in post-Yugoslav era
Croatia (Brentin, 2013, 2016; Sack and Suster, 2000; Vrcan, 2002) through to the public
denouncement of sporting failures which are blamed on the impact of ‘migrant players’
by right-wing politicians, as has been seen in the French context in the actions of JeanMarie
Le Pen’s National Front (Kassimeris, 2011a; Marks, 1998).
Switching attention from the international to the domestic level of political operation,
sport’s mass appeal within a given nation also presents an opportunity for politicians to
bolster their electoral support. In the European context, the primary vehicle for domestic
political appropriation is football, with the pre-existence of strong fan cultures and identities
for football clubs offering scope for political actors to align their political beliefs
with those influential fan groups (Hadas, 2000; Kassimeris, 2011b; Scalia, 2009;
Thangaraj et al., 2018). For example, Scalia’s (2009) analysis of the interconnection
between football and politics in Italy contends that football clubs have been used by
contemporary Italian politicians as a ‘branch of their patronage machine’ (2009: 48),
138	 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 56(1)
which for some clubs has led to an alignment with extreme right-wing political causes.
More recently, the English context has also witnessed the rise of right-wing political
movements such as the Democratic Football Lads Alliance which have spawned from
football fan cultures (Thangaraj et al., 2018).
Therefore, whilst such interaction between sport and right-wing politics is present in
a range of countries across Europe, we argue that the connection between those social
institutions is both traditional and extensive, and recently rejuvenated in Hungary. Given
this, we turn our attention to this country’s recent history, i.e. post-communist transition,
to foreground Victor Orbán’s appropriation of sport.
Hungary’s post-communist political transition
Hungary, a country geographically located in the centre of Europe, has had a turbulent
past (Lendvai, 2003), which still has bearing on its current socio-cultural, economic and
political development. Arguably one of the most significant recent changes has been the
country getting rid of the Soviet yoke and returning to the fold of Western democracy.
Soviet influence over Hungary began to decrease in the late 1980s, a precursor to the
collapse of the ‘Iron Curtain’in 1989. Åslund (1999) noted that the failing Soviet system
left its annexed countries in multiple uncertainties which had to be remedied. However,
the downfall of the Soviet Union also provided opportunities for global (re)integration
(Földes and Inotai, 2001; Mátyás, 2002; Molnar, 2006), which, in turn, helped new
frameworks and reforms emerge (Molnar et al., 2011). As a result, Hungary experienced
extensive society-wide changes, including the return of democratic elections and a multiparty
political system.
The first post-communist democratic elections took place on 25 March 1990 with the
Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) securing dominance and forming a coalition government
with the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) and the Independent
Smallholder’s Party (FGKP). Whilst liberal voices, such as the Alliance of Young
Democrats (FIDESZ), were supported by some of the votes, the majority of the people
favoured conservative, nationalist parties. As financial instability continued in all areas
of Hungary in the 1990s (Meusburger, 2001), people began to lose faith in the new system
and government, leading to the return of the reformed communist party (Hungarian
Socialist Party – MSZP), which won the second elections on 8 May 1994 and formed a
coalition government with the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ). These elections
were a bitter disappointment for FIDESZ, which created an intra-party struggle, triggering
a significant political shift away from liberal ideas towards conservative and nationalist
sentiments. Whilst MSZP retained most of its popularity during its mandate, the
1998 elections saw the rise of the reformed, now more conservative, FIDESZ, which
won the most seats in the Hungarian parliament and formed a coalition government with
MDF and FGKP.
Despite three different governments between 1990 and 2002, economic instability
remained significant in Hungary. According to a survey carried out in 2000 (cited in
Molnar, 2011), 82% of the respondents had had higher living standards during the communist
era than in the new democracy. Economic instability began to create a politically
divided Hungary, with MSZP and FIDESZ being the two dominant parties. This division
Molnar and Whigham	 139
was reflected in the outcome of the 2002 elections, in which FIDESZ could retain its
majority in the House of Parliament, but MSZP managed to form a government by establishing
a coalition with SZDSZ. The MSZP–SZDSZ coalition government proved strong
and retained its majority in the 2006 general elections when they became the first government
to be re-elected in Hungary since the collapse of communism. However, the
confidential, post-election party congress speech by the MSZPleader, Ference Gyurcsány,
was leaked to the public, triggering pronounced nation-wide controversy and protests.
The infamous speech is referred to as the ‘Őszöd Speech’ and at that time grabbed both
the domestic and international mass media’s attention given the brutally direct political
remarks made by Gyurcsány (www.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5359546.stm).
The Őszöd Speech was the beginning of the decline of the MSZP and, more importantly,
the rise of FIDESZ. In addition to the scandal surrounding Prime Minster
Gyurcsány, Hungary did not fare well economically in the second half of the 2000s as
that period experienced the economic crisis commencing in 2008 (Molnar and Doczi,
2020). A combination of political outrage and economic instability led to the landslide
2010 general election victory for FIDESZ, which the party referred to as a ‘revolution at
the polls’ (Palonen, 2012: 931). This victory mandated for large-scale transformations in
Hungary due to the two-thirds majority possessed by the governing coalition parties, sufficiently
large for constitutional changes. The new constitution changed the official name
of the country from the Hungarian Republic to Hungary, revealing an inclination to create
a borderless nation of Hungarians, aiming for the inclusion of Hungarian minorities
living in neighbouring countries (Palonen, 2012). The FIDESZ government have maintained
its efforts to strengthen the Magyar1 nation inside and outside of Hungary’s borders.
Sport, especially football, became a dominant tool for Victor Orbán to flex his
nationalist muscles and retain his popularity over three consecutive general elections.
Sport in post-communist Hungarian politics: FIDESZ’s
growing influence
The relationship between politics and sport in the early years of the post-communist era
was random and sporadic. It has been argued that sport probably lost most of its political
significance as the general public became aware of its political appropriation by the communist
regime, which made politicians of the 1990s cautious (Molnar, 2007). A trend
was also observed regarding politicians publicly expressing a disinterest in sport to
demarcate themselves from communist political agendas (Molnar, 2007). Interestingly,
FIDESZ departed from this attitude and during its first coalition government (1998–
2002) showed active involvement in sport, specifically football development. In many
ways, FIDESZ’s strategic use of sport for political ends therefore simply mirrored the
wider trend within this period in other developed and developing nations in Europe outlined
above (Brentin, 2013, 2016; Kassimeris, 2011a, 2011b; Marks, 1998; Sack and
Suster, 2000; Vrcan, 2002). For instance, a professional football league was launched in
the 1999–2000 season, a state-funded football grassroots development was created, a
football Stadia Reconstruction Programme was initiated (Molnar et al., 2011), and the
Minister of Youth and Sport at that time, Tamás Deutsch, actively interfered with the
internal affairs of the Hungarian Football Association (Hoffer and Thaly, 2000). To what
140	 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 56(1)
extent FIDESZ’s strong connection to sport helped or impaired the party’s political position
and progress in the 1990s and early 2000s is moot; nonetheless, its first administration
is a clear indication of its political approach to deploying sport for its own purposes
and also is a harbinger of the post-2010 interconnections between sport and politics in
Hungary.
FIDESZ regained political power in 2010 and has held onto it ever since. During this
period several radical reforms across the country were introduced, showing intent to centralise
and control strategic areas, such as the energy industry, education and media. The
new regime, named the System of National Cooperation, developed a scheme to work
together against the challenges posed by globalisation, Westernisation and the ongoing
economic crisis (Molnar and Doczi, 2020). The reactionary nature of these protectionist
strategic reforms can be argued to resonate with broader arguments regarding the precursors
of populist political ideologies in European politics (Gusterson, 2017; Inglehart
and Norris, 2016; Salmela and Von Schave, 2017). The Orbán era of Hungarian politics
echoes the sceptical arguments of many other parties on the ‘right’ of European politics
regarding the threat to Hungarian sovereignty and economic development from the liberal
policies of the European Union in relation to trade and immigration. It appears, therefore,
that within that broader ideological approach, sport was identified as a key strategic sector
to reinforce a distinctive sense of Hungarian identity as FIDESZ resumed its previous
attempts to centralise and incorporate it into its politics. This meant that sport, football
specifically, became a distinctive aspect of right-wing popular politics in Hungary and, in
turn, the recipient of significant central investment (Ligeti and Mucsi, 2016).
Arguably, there are two chief reasons as to why football has regained its political
significance in the FIDESZ era: the personal and the political. On a personal level, the
leader of FIDESZ and Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, is and has been a passionate
football fan and player. He even continued to play semi-professional football in
Felcsút for a fourth-division team during his first reign as Prime Minister. As was the
case for Italy’s ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi through his past ownership of one of
Italy’s leading football clubs, A.C. Milan (Kassimeris, 2011b; Scalia, 2009), Orbán’s
pre-existing association with football can, therefore, be argued to have offered him a
unique opportunity to present himself to the Hungarian electorate as a politician with the
‘common touch’. This positioning of football as an important element of Hungarian popular
culture is a valuable attribute for the effective populist political actor who wishes to
distance their public persona from the political, intellectual and institutional elites,
against which populist political parties often rail (Bonikowski, 2017; Bonikowski et al.,
2018; Fernández-García and Luengo, 2018; Moffitt and Tormey, 2014; Rooduijn, 2015).
Orbán’s frequent Eurosceptic, anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalism rhetoric is evidence
of right-wing populist political tendencies (Harris, 2017).
Orbán’s personal connection to Felcsút saw the small town receiving an economic
boost in the form of a football stadium, the Pancho Arena. This development is part of
Orbán’s aspiration to improve the quality of Hungarian football and restore the golden
days of the Magic Magyars (Goldblatt and Nolan, 2018). This 3812-capacity, luxurygrade
stadium cost around €12.2m and is located near a town with a population of approximately
1800 – an unorthodox location for a football arena of this scale at twice the
capacity of its host town. Given this, Ligeti and Mucsi (2016) argue that football stadia
Molnar and Whigham	 141
construction is one of the main ways in which public money unaccountably disappears in
Orbán-era Hungary. The Felcsút football club is the case in point as it received €30m
central funding between 2011 and 2014 out of a €240m budget that was to be shared
across more than 1100 clubs (Ligeti and Mucsi, 2016). In addition to centrally funded
football development, Orbán also regularly comments on the sport and related results in
state-sponsored mass media and perceives Hungarians to be a football-smart nation.
Another example of the football–politics connection is the celebratory government voices
that were present when, after a 30-year gap in international football achievements, the
Hungarian national team qualified for the 2016 European Championship (Molnar and
Doczi, 2020). Such explicit attempts to associate the successes of Hungary’s footballing
representatives with the nation’s political leadership, thus, continues a long-established
pattern from political leaders who wish to gain political capital from sport (Allison, 2000;
Bairner, 2001, 2015; Hadas, 2000; Hoberman, 1984; Houlihan, 1994).
As a consequence of being identified as a key strategic political sector, sport, and
football specifically, was granted unprecedented state support. Ligeti and Mucsi (2016:
117) list the number and volume of football stadia investments by the Hungarian government
since 2010. The FIDESZ government have spent over €100m on such investments.
The need for this level of investment is particularly questionable as, despite new stadia,
the Nemzeti Sport [National Sport] (2014) newspaper reported that match attendance
numbers were dwindling. Other sport facilities have also been (re)constructed, which
coincides with the government’s aim to stage sporting mega-events and major international
events, such as the World Aquatics Championships, the European Football
Championships, the World Athletics Championships, and the Summer Olympic Games
(Molnar and Doczi, 2020). Moreover, in 2015 a state-funded television channel was
launched dedicated to broadcasting sports, specifically covering events where Hungarian
athletes participate. These are all examples of continuously increasing state influence of
and interference with sport, especially football (see Goldblatt and Nolan, 2018). Based
on the above examples, it is safe to say that the current government, and Orbán leading
it, have been redistributing public funds as they see fit, with sport acting as a medium for
achieving specific political goals with limited (and sometimes muted) public outcry
given the popular (and populist) nature of sport in Hungarian culture.
‘Defender of the homeland’: reinventing the Magyars
through football in Orbán’s Hungary
Perhaps due to the above-described events and political actions, Harris (2017) observes
that in Central Europe Hungary has the lowest democratic score and declares it appropriate
that Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, greeted the
Hungarian prime minister in Riga in May 2015 by saying ‘Hello, dictator’. Whilst it
may initially appear harsh to call Orbán a dictator, US Senator John McCain had
referred to him as such a year earlier (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hungary-usaidUSKCN0JH1EW20141203),
and on closer inspection some of the actions of his
administration may qualify for that title. Broadly speaking, Orbán views immigration
and liberal/multicultural EU policies as threats to the Hungarian nation, and has, therefore,
implemented a range of actions to ‘protect’ the Magyars, including changing the
142	 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 56(1)
Hungarian constitution multiple times, catering for the needs of the Hungarian oligarchs,
declaring his aims to build an ‘illiberal state’ and, perhaps most importantly,
portraying himself as the ‘defender’ of Hungary.
Interestingly and importantly, the self-proclaimed ‘defender of the Homeland’ rhetoric
expressed by Orbán and his political entourage does not exclusively refer to the
Hungarian nation within its existing borders, but to the greater, pre-Trianon (1920)
Kingdom of Hungary. The Hungarian Spectrum (2018) notes that post-communist governments
‘pledged Hungary’s acceptance of the present borders, but Viktor Orbán is
retreating from that position’. In other words, Orbán envisions the Hungarian nation in
its pre-Trianon form with all the lost territories (re)attached. He adopts an irredentist
stance on the matter to re-connect Magyars inside and outside of Hungary and football,
in particular, has become an institute through which all Magyars may be (re)united.
Here it is worth noting that irredentism and post-Trianon Hungary go hand-in-hand.
The end of the Great War and the outcome of the consequent peace negotiations dissolved
the Austro-Hungarian Empire and greatly reduced both the population and geographic
size of Hungary. Beiner (2013: 41) observes that the late arriving Hungarian
delegation was served a document ‘fait accompli’. In particular Part II of the document
(Frontiers of Hungary) ‘stipulated that the Kingdom of Hungary was to lose approximately
70% of its former territory and, according to their reckoning, almost a third of its
ethnic Hungarian population (3.3 million out of 10.7 million) to six neighbouring countries’.
This historic decimation of Hungary both as a country and a nation left deep scars
in the Hungarian psyche (Várdy, 1997). This feeling of national resentment was somewhat
oppressed during the communist era as it was considered ‘as the product of imperialism,
serving bourgeois and landowner interests’ (Beiner, 2013: 42). However, in the
new democracy such nationalistic sentiments resurfaced with gusto and Orbán harnessed
them to serve his political ends.
The reunification efforts through sport are a sign of Orbán’s recognition of sport’s
socio-cultural significance in Hungary and in the construction of Hungarian national
identity. For instance, through a survey-based study, Örkény (2005) demonstrated that
in both 1995 and 2003 sport achievements were one of the highest sources of national
pride in Hungary, significantly exceeding other categories such as the economy, social
security and democracy. Pertinent to our arguments on sport here, Örkény (2005: 40)
also noted that ‘those who run for a nationalist movement and popular sport should
appeal, first of all, to people’s ethnocentric dispositions’. This connection between
Hungarian national identity and pride is astutely recognised by the Orbán regime.
However, for Orbán, national identity often shifts to regional identity as a way of
demarcating himself, the Hungarian nation and the wider region from the ‘oppressive’
European Union. Csehi (2019: 1016), based on an analysis of Orbán’s speeches,
observes that for Orbán ‘the corrupt elite’ was increasingly equated with ‘European
bureaucrats’. Consequently, the Prime Minister has been fostering a regional identity
which shifted from calling on the people of Hungary, to Hungarians (Magyars), and
then to ‘Central Europeans’. Csehi (2019: 1017) argues that the ‘constant reinterpretation
of “the people” with newer and newer layers of identity was carried out to ensure
stable, or even increased mobilization behind his political agenda’.
Molnar and Whigham	 143
In relation to football, Orbán’s reunification efforts have manifested through substantial
state support for football academies inside and outside of the country’s borders where
Hungarian minorities reside, including Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and
Slovenia (Bence, 2018). This shows a clear intention to symbolically unite Hungarians
across national borders through football. The Hungarian Spectrum (2018) referred to
these efforts of the government as creating ‘extraterritorial football facilities as the glue
of national cohesion’. Oroszi and Sipos (2018) unfolded the Orbán government’s investments
into the construction of footballing facilities outside of Hungary’s borders and
have identified that between 2013 and 2018 there was an approximately HUF16b (€50m)
expenditure. These efforts are in line with the aforementioned recent constitutional
change to the official name of the country from Hungarian Republic to Hungary.
Football’s role in these nation (re)building endeavours has been to become a platform
through which all Magyars living in and outside of Hungary may unite.
To this end, whilst the Orbán government’s extra-territorial sporting investments may
be easily interpreted as nothing more than regional diplomacy or a form of ‘banal nationalism’
(Billig, 1995), we contend that those activities are of greater importance in relation
to the reconstruction of a conceptualisation of a Hungarian nation which invokes
ethnically rooted, ‘hot’ forms of nationalism (Hutchinson, 2006). In other words, it can
be argued that the re-emergence of irredentist attitudes in post-communist Hungary have
been harnessed by the Orbán administration to create a form of sports policy with the
view to reinvent a post-communist, Western Hungary. This strategic approach, thus, can
be argued to resemble a form of Hungarian cultural imperialism in the Carpathian Basin,
aiming to portray Hungary as a ‘football-smart nation’ with a reach beyond its geographic
borders to unite all ethnic Hungarians, thereby (re)vitalising a national identity
that has been continuously oppressed, bruised, and challenged in the 20th century and
beyond (Molnar and Doczi, 2020; Várdy, 1997; Várdy and Várdy, 1989). The words of
Orbán himself at the grand opening of the MOL Football Academy in Dunajská Streda,
Slovakia in 2018 explicate our contentions regarding the symbolic significance of these
strategic foreign investments in sporting infrastructure as an ethnically derived form of
‘hot nationalism’ uniting ethnic Hungarians across existing state borders:
I would like to make it clear – without pathos or pomp – that, now and in the future, the people of
Dunaszerdahely and the Hungarians of Felvidék [the Hungarian-populated region of Slovakia]
can rely on Hungary, on the Hungarian government, and on me personally. . . we should be happy
that Hungarians beyond the borders and Hungarians at home have found one another, and are
capable of building and creating things together not only at home, but also beyond the borders. . .
Sport is an excellent link between the peoples and countries of the Carpathian Basin – and
therefore also between Hungary and Slovakia. (Hungarian Government, 2018)
Concluding thoughts
In this article we have focused on the gradual emergence of popular politics across Europe,
and have provided a brief summary of some of the relevant and bourgeoning literature to
foreground our discussion of the specific manifestation of populist politics in the domain
of Hungarian sport and society. We argued that while a degree of dissonance remains in
144	 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 56(1)
contemporary politically inclined research as regards to how to specifically define and
interpret popular politics, some common trends are observable. However, we deem it
essential to explore popular politics and populist political parties in action within their
own socio-cultural settings.
To unpack some of the existing tendencies of right-wing populist political parties, we
focused on Hungary and the current Hungarian government’s ever increasing presence in
sport, specifically football. We have contended that the FIDESZ-led administration deviated
from previous post-communist practices in terms of their relation to sport and football
development. In fact, we argue that since 2010, the beginning of the FIDESZ era,
significant changes have taken place across Hungary and Hungarian sport. Sport has
become part of the government’s strategic plan, in which football in particular has gained
a significant role. We explained that football’s centrality has derived from two reasons:
personal and political. Personal reasons included the long-term, active football involvement
of Victor Orbán who has invested millions of euros into football stadia development
(most of which are highly controversial), endeavouring to bring back the golden
days of the ‘Magic Magyars’ in order to successfully re-frame Hungary as a ‘football
smart nation’.
The political reasons, not disconnected from the personal, centre more around issues
regarding the Hungarian nation and national identity. Given that Hungary’s turbulent
history and the consequences of World War I peace negotiations have remained in the
Magyar national psyche, but were suppressed during the communist period, the post-Iron
Curtain democratic era has given rise to irredentist sentiments across the nation. We
argued that the Orbán government has harnessed them for its own political ends. In this
arrangement, Orbán has been portrayed as the ‘Defender of the Homeland’ whereby he
is there to protect Hungary as a country and to unite all Magyars in and outside of the
country. In this irredentist endeavour, football and related investments have become a
key political tool for the government, which has made a number of significant foreign
investments in building stadia and other football facilities in areas that used to belong to
the pre-Trianon Kingdom of Hungary.
In this light, we argue that these activities of the government can be seen as a form of
reconstruction of a conceptualisation of a Hungarian nation which invokes ethnically
rooted, ‘hot’ forms of nationalism and a primordial perception of nationhood. This
approach aims to remedy and (re)vitalise a Magyar national identity as a strategic
response to the multitude of contemporary challenges that span from economic uncertainties,
European Union-based centralism and mass-migration-triggered national fears.
However, as similar right-wing populist movements continue to gain momentum across
other European nations in response to these contemporary global challenges, what
remains to be seen is the extent to which these endeavours by Orbán’s government do
indeed bear fruit in terms of Hungary’s economic, social and political development
within the tumultuous political climate which is impacting upon the supra-national project
of the European Union.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Molnar and Whigham	 145
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
ORCID iDs
Gyozo Molnar   https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1732-5672
Stuart Whigham   https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1123-2248
Note
1.	 Although Hungarian and Magyar often used interchangeably, here we use the term ‘Magyar’,
especially ‘Magyars’ to refer to Hungarians inside and outside of the geographic area of
Hungary.
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