Hungarian Football Championship: Another scandal

Unlike me, Zsófia Mihancsik, editor-in-chief of Galamus, is interested in football and therefore notices bits of news I wouldn’t catch.

Saturday was the final match for the Hungarian championship. The Győri ETO won against MTK. This is the first time in 30 years that the team from Győr won the honors. The heyday of Győri ETO was in the early 1980s when twice in a row the team captured the title of Hungarian Champion. After such a long dry spell the fans were understandably excited and decided to make a very nice gesture. Since out of the 30 members of the team 17 are foreigners coming from 10 different countries, they held up a sign saying “Many nations, one team–Thank you!”

Well, some might say that this was a thoughtful gesture, but it wasn’t taken as such by the nationalist football fans. Eventually the organizers of the Győr fan club had to explain that they are “not committed to these countries”; they simply wanted to call attention to the fact that the players come from many different nations. From the apologetic letter it is evident that most of the criticism stemmed from the presence of Romanian and Slovak flags. The fan club’s leaders had to admit that they made a mistake because “unwittingly they hurt the feelings of many Hungarians.” The authors of the letter emphasized that it was only a small number of fans who insisted on celebrating the victory this way and immediately announced that after fourteen years of existence the fan club had folded. Finally, they asked forgiveness “from every Hungarian and fellow fans, but especially from our Hungarian Friends who live outside of the borders of Hungary.”

A group of extremist football fans who call themselves “ultras liberi” led the pack against the Győri ETO fan club. The comments aren’t available at the moment, which is probably just as well. The few Zsófia Mihancsik quotes on Galamus are obscene and mostly abusive, especially when it comes to the Slovaks and the Romanians. There was only one person who took the side of the Győr fan club, but unfortunately his reasoning was based on his belief in the restoration of Greater Hungary under Hungarian leadership. He admitted that he is anti-Semitic and anti-Roma and that he considers “Negroes” stupid, but he saw nothing wrong with the sign of “Many nations–one team” because he believes in a Hungary that extends to the outer perimeter of the Carpathian Basin. “But the players of  these different nationalities (Romanian, Slovak, etc.) helped to achieve the victory of a Hungarian team.” He added that “this is a perfect example of what was going on in Hungary for 900 years when we lived in one country with the Romanians, Slovak Serbs, Croatians, Ruthenians, etc.”

Out of curiosity I looked at the national composition of some of the better known Hungarian football teams, starting with Videoton, Viktor Orbán’s favorite club. Here out of the 26 players there are only 10 Hungarians. As opposed to Győr, where most of the foreigners come from Central and Eastern Europe, Videoton seems to be looking around for talent in Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, although they also have a fair number from the Balkans (Serbs and Montenegrins).  Ferencváros is also full of foreign players, whom Hungarians seem to call “foreign legionnaires.” Out of the 24 players only 9 are natives. Ferencváros’s leadership likes the Brazilians and the French, but Serbia is also represented on the team with two players. The most Hungarian teams are the Loki from Debrecen and MTK in Budapest where the Hungarian players are in the majority.

Nikola  Trajkovic, who won the game for Győri ETO – http://www.sport1tv.hu

I might add that the match’s only goal was by Nikola Trajković, a Serb. The football career of Trajković illustrates how futile it is to think in terms of national teams. He played for several lesser known Serbian football clubs before moving on to the Serbian and later to the Montenegrin national team. He made a little side trip to Greece where he played for the Thrasyvoulus Fylis.

Another player on the Győr team is the Slovak Marián Had, who’s had an even more eventful career than Trajković. He started with lesser known Slovak clubs and then moved on to Brno in the Czech Republic. Soon enough he got a very lucrative job with FC Lokomotiv in Moscow. In 2007 he played in Portugal, and later again in Moscow. In 2009 he played for Sparta in Prague. Now he is in Hungary.

So, what are we talking about? National teams? Forget about them. It is simply business. Hungary doesn’t have the money to get the very best, but they are not stuck in the mud either. If they can’t find competitive Hungarian players the coaches go abroad and get the best they can. It’s time to get used to it.

Maiming the Hungarian constitution: Is the Orbán government willing to pay the price?

While opposition politicians are unable to agree on any meaningful joint action and the so-called intellectual class is deeply divided, the Orbán government is merrily proceeding with its plans to rewrite the new constitution. According to constitutional experts, if the latest amendments are voted into law Hungary will be without a valid constitution.

There was only one group that was ready to take things into their own hands. They decided to engage in civil disobedience. Since ordinary opposition gatherings are not even reported in the public media, tightly controlled by the government, they decided to do something that was guaranteed to get media coverage. They climbed a fence and settled in the courtyard of the Fidesz party headquarters. There they sat  for ten hours and repeated a few slogans. Mostly: “Constitution, Freedom” and “We protest the destruction of the constitutional system of the Hungarian Republic.”

The organizers of the Peace March, András Bencsik and Zsolt Bayer, immediately counterattacked. On Facebook they called on their followers to come and teach a thing or two to these little “Bolsheviks.” And they arrived. Someone described “the fruitful political dialogue” this way:

Youngsters: “We protest the destruction of the constitutional system of the Hungarian Republic.” And here are some of the answers from “the peace guardists”: “Do you want to have some acid in your face?” “Get lost and work!” “I’ll slap you on the face, you rat!” “Rotten, lousy communist stooge!” “Go to Moscow!” “Filthy f…ing Jews!” “Stupid fag!” “Come on out, if you dare, you little queers!”  That will give you an idea about the Fidesz fans who gathered in the name of Christian love and peace.

Here is our gentleman who threatened a young man with acid:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpR87Bjqe2M

Perhaps the officials inside the building no longer trust the police because they were ordered to retire after a while. “Volunteers”  arrived to save the building and those inside it from the peaceful demonstrators. Most of them came from the notorious Fradi (Ferencváros) fan club. One of the volunteers spent ten years in jail for murder and now serves as a “coordinator” for the fan club. The football hooligans physically tried to remove the protesters. Eventually the demonstrators left on their own but not before some of them climbed a wall and positioned themselves on a balcony. The clever student leaders began reciting Fidesz’s 1989 party program which was full of liberal demands. The counter-protesters naturally had no idea that what they were screaming at was really Victor Orbán, their idol.

Older women were especially vocal. They simply couldn’t understand what the protesters were complaining about. How can they be dissatisfied when at last the country has a “good government”? One woman, obviously a pensioner, claimed that it is her money that these students are wasting.

One really has to be deaf and blind to claim that the small crowd that gathered in the courtyard of the Fidesz headquarters was “rabble” as Péter Boros, prime minister of Hungary for a few months after József Antall’s death in 1993-1994, did. Interestingly enough, he had nothing to say about the behavior of the counter-protesters. One can get a vivid picture of the Fidesz crowd by watching this video:

But perhaps the most shocking and most telling example of the mindset of the peace marchers and Orbán supporters is a very professionally executed banner. On it one can see practically all the important MSZP politicians in addition to Ferenc Gyurcsány, Gordon Bajnai, Lajos Bokros, and András Simor. The banner reads: “The nation is in mourning! It suffers from the presence of traitors.”  In Hungarian it has even more punch: “Gyászol a nemzet! Hazaárulóktól szenved!”  Just think about this horrendous statement. I don’t know whether the people actually know what they are saying, because from this banner it is clear that what they want is a one-party system. The opposition has no right to exist. In fact, they should be eliminated as traitors used to be. Perhaps hanged.

The nation is in mourning! It is suffering from the presence of traitors / Népszabadság Árpád Kurucz

Yesterday’s protest was laudable in many ways. Take, for instance, the poise and dignity of the protesters. As you can see on the video, the young man didn’t lose his cool despite repeated physical and verbal abuse. Second, their protest lasted over ten hours. At the beginning they were alone, but once word got out about the gathering others joined them. By the time the demonstrators decided to walk over to the building of the Constitutional Court their numbers had swelled to about 1,000. By contrast, the counter-demonstrators got tired of screaming and their numbers decreased fairly rapidly.

The football hooligans of Gábor Kubatov’s Ferencváros football team, I think we can now say with conviction, are in the employ of Fidesz. Not necessarily in the sense of having paid positions but in being ready to assist “their party”  if necessary. Certainly, someone from the building called on them. One can’t help thinking of the storming of the public television station by Fradi football hooligans.

And finally, the protesters are determined to continue their fight for democracy, the constitution, and the rule of law. Moreover, they seem to have realized that without parties they cannot be successful. At their next demonstration tomorrow parties are welcome.

And, in a critical turn of events, the European Union and the Council of Europe are also waking up to the harsh reality in Hungary. I already wrote about German Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Michael Link’s warning letter in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung a few days ago. I was sure at that time that something was brewing in Germany. And, indeed, today ” in a statement reflecting deep seated anxiety at the direction Orbán is taking Hungary, Germany and three other EU countries called for Brussels to be given new power allowing it to freeze EU budget funds to a member state in breach of Europe’s ‘fundamental values.'” The three other countries are the Netherlands, Denmark, and Finland. Since then we found out from the spokesman of the European Commission that José Manuel Barroso phoned Viktor Orbán this morning and warned the Hungarian prime minister that the proposed changes in the Hungarian constitution are not only incompatible with the rule of law but also might violate laws of the European Union. Following the conversation Barroso sent a letter in which he summarized the points he made during the telephone conversation.

I should also mention that today we learned that President János Ader will be in Berlin on Monday and Tuesday next week. On Monday he will meet President Joachim Gauck. Tuesday his first trip will be to Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle followed by a conversation with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Some might say that this trip was arranged some time ago and has nothing to do with the current brouhaha over the Hungarian constitution. Perhaps, but I find it odd that the president of Hungary has an appointment with the German foreign minister. I doubt that this is normal protocol. My hunch is that although the trip might have been arranged earlier, the meeting with Westerwelle was added only recently. But this is only a guess on my part.