The Hungarian Football Training Disaster

The Hungarian football training disaster just goes from bad to worse. Lets get one thing straight. Hungarian football is not short of money. Between 2011 to 2018 the sport received over 791 billion Forints from the central budget. Hungarian football academies which have the task of producing the next generation of star players managed to secure 162 billion Forints of that.

Introduction: The Hungarian Football Training Disaster

So where you might ask are the results. Unfortunately there is precious little to show. Victor Orban the prime minister and our dear leader, has often boasted of these academies, especially the one situated in his home village. Thanks to online sports news, we know that the Puskás Academy in Felcsút, has received the main share of this funding over the years. And yet there has been no improvement in the standard of Hungarian football, more especially on the international stage. This year, for the first time, the academy asked for only 1.1 billion Forints. Of this, they plan to use 109 million to create a “running hill”. Let’s have a look at this new piece of apparatus. It’s a small incline, measuring 13 meters by 17 meters and just 2.25 meters in height. Every other football team in the world has the players run up and down the stands. But, as they say, Hungarians are “special”.

Mountain out of a Molehill

Throwing huge sums of money at football does not produce talented players. Even some Hungarian sports book news sites point this out. There needs to be some talent in the first place. The training academy’s job is to nurture and grow this talent, to then harness it for better game play. The most noted student to be regurgitated out of the Puskás Academy was a 26 years old, who when playing with the national team against Wales, managed to lose possession of the ball 39 times. I’m not sure a tiny “hill” is going to improve matters. (Bro-tip: It will not!)

The Belgians Should Stick to Chocolates

Some years ago the Hungarian Football Association (MLSZ) asked the independent Belgian firm Double Pass to take a thorough look at all the training academies in Hungary. After the company ranked them, the Hungarian government, along with the MLSZ moved to hide the report. Victor Orban’s favorite, Felcsút, which by the way, is right smack bang next to his house there (you couldn’t make this up if you tried!) which receives the lions share of funding, came in at 9th out of 12. They found the training methods to be woefully out dated and inadequate. Also there were no specialist trainers, no physiological training and even the training software was eons out of date.

Hungary is “Special”

Not surprisingly, all the trainers and coaches claim that Hungarian football is somehow “special” and that the Belgian firm didn’t really understand the Hungarian system. But one only has to look at international football results to see that they understand the situation perfectly. Even the Hungarian public have become tired of the same old footballing troupes that make up the Hungarian football training disaster. Sports book sites like Betsson are being affected. That somehow the game can both save the Hungarian nation and warrant the huge sums spent on it when both education and healthcare are so sadly lacking. On football, Hungary spends more than any other EU member state. By a lot.

Not Fit For Purpose

In spite of huge amounts of money poured into Felcsút, the field drainage is not fit for purpose. When it rains, the players end up playing in a virtual lake. Of course the management blamed the rain. No, that’s not a joke. Not only that, but the intricate wooded structure that’s meant to protect the spectators from the weather doesn’t actually cover anything. The area set aside for the press, with their laptops and cameras is open to the elements. Having tired of getting soaked by the rain, they now prefer to watch the game from indoors on a monitor. Yet in spite of this, being the mouth piece for the government state controlled media, means they’ll never openly write about the Hungarian football training disaster.

What’s Mine is Mine, What’s Yours in Mine

Of course football spending on stadiums and training is just a means of disguising payments to friends and oligarchs. It’s just a means of taking cash from the pocket of the tax payer and giving it to your friends. Gotta keep your backers sweet. Once these people have siphoned off their percentage, there’s not much left for the stated purpose. To keep money train going, the spending on sports academies now includes foreign teams. It does seem very odd that Orban doesn’t appear to realize that he’s simply throwing good money after bad. Just look  at the sorry state of Hungarian football mascots. All this tax payers funds being poured into football has produced nothing. Even the betting sites like Betsson are starting to take note. To add insult to injury, at the recent EU climate change summit, Orban used Hungary’s lack of financial resources as the reason for not participating in the EU’s zero emission program. Dictators gotta dictate.