Orban Planning

"Only a month before the 8-1 defeat in Amsterdam, the government had announced its plan to host European Championship games in 2020... News of the grand seven-year plan was all over the state media for days. As in the Communist era, irreverent political jokes abounded: what’s the difference between Orbán and Platini? One’s an autocratic, ageing, overweight midfielder and the other one was European Footballer of the Year in 1984.

"In truth, Orbán’s political destiny has been linked to football from the start. Some of the most powerful members of his government including the president and leader of the House — played in the same five-a-side team as the prime minister in the late 1980s."

In Episode Seventy Five of the Blizzard Podcast we look back to 'Orbán Planning' by Dan Nolan, originally published in Issue Fourteen in September 2014.

In the piece, he looks at the divisive Hungarian leader's relationship with football, which led to his government spending vast sums on stadium expansion while a significant proportion of his population lives in poverty. How can he explain the Ferenc Puskas Academy and its 3,500 seater stadium only 20m from his back-door in the small village of Felcsút?

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