Amid JD Vance’s promotional tour of Budapest and his public support for Viktor Orban, one staging choice stood out: a pre-election rally at MTK Sportpark. The venue, opened in 2025 and used by MTK Budapest — one of Hungary’s most successful clubs — is closely tied to Orban’s party; MTK’s president, Tamas Deutsch, is a Fidesz MEP. Observers say the choice was deliberate.
Gyozo Molnar, a sociology of sport professor originally from Hungary, describes the stadium as “Orban’s preferred arena, quite literally.” He says a nationwide network of clubs, academies and stadium projects acts as a material patronage system linking local communities and elites to Fidesz, with electoral consequences, especially in rural areas.
State influence touches virtually every top-division club. Politicians take executive roles, state-linked entities hold stakes, and funds flow through programs such as TAO, a corporate income tax scheme introduced in 2011 that allows firms to offset donations to selected sports clubs. TAO has directed billions to government-backed clubs and sparked construction contracts reportedly awarded to firms close to the ruling party.
Hungary consistently scores poorly on EU corruption indices and remains one of the bloc’s less affluent members, contexts that amplify concerns about how sports funding is used politically. Orban has defended TAO, arguing the program strengthened ties between business and sport and supported youth facilities.
Fidesz’s sporting reach extends beyond Hungary. The government has developed ties to clubs in neighboring countries with Hungarian minorities — Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia and Ukraine. Since 2010, simplified naturalization and extended voting rights enabled many ethnic Hungarians abroad to vote in Hungary; diaspora ballots have historically favored Fidesz. Investing in local stadiums, academies and youth programs in these communities reinforces a message that Orban’s government supports Hungarians beyond the border, strengthening electoral support.
One high-profile domestic example is Puskas Akademia, built, funded and steered by Orban since its 2007 founding. Its Pancho Arena in Felcsut — named for national legend Ferenc Puskas and seating about 3,800 people, double the village’s population — embodies the blend of personal passion and political project. The stadium and academy are visible symbols of Orban’s investment in football infrastructure.
David Goldblatt, a football historian, says Orban genuinely loves the game — playing, watching and thinking about it — and that passion is leveraged politically. Funding and promoting the national team allows Orban to craft a nationalist narrative: a return to former glory after periods of decline, framed as a broader story of recovery from past humiliations. Goldblatt recounts Orban’s slogan-like appeal to “make Hungarian football great again,” emblematic of how sport is employed to evoke national pride.
Fidesz has built more than 25 stadiums nationwide, the largest being Budapest’s Puskas Arena. That stadium is set to host the Champions League final on May 30 — an event Molnar calls a crowning validation of Orban’s sport-as-nation-building strategy. The timing of the match around the election increases its symbolic importance: if Orban wins, the final will become a coronation of his legacy in Hungarian sport; if he loses, the game may become an awkward inheritance for a new government tasked with managing the infrastructure and the political economy of sport Orban assembled.
Molnar warns that whoever controls the state after the election will inherit not just stadiums but patronage networks, local loyalties and embedded economic arrangements. How a successor government treats that legacy will reveal whether populist-nationalist projects tied to material patronage can be unwound via democratic change.
Orban’s personal involvement in football — from grassroots to national stage — has embedded the sport in Hungary’s political life. That fusion of passion, public funding and electoral strategy means football has become more than entertainment: it is a tool for political legitimacy and social influence, with long-term implications for governance and civic life.
Edited by: Chuck Penfold
This article was originally published on April 9, 2026. It was amended later the same day to reflect that JD Vance spoke at the MTK Sportpark in Budapest and not the Groupama Arena as previously reported.