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Tax credits for sports clubs: Orbán’s village profits largely again
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According to The Hungarian Football Association’s proposal, The Felcsút Foundation for Training Future Footballers would be eligible for a financial support as high as 2.2 billion HUF in the coming year. With this amount, Felcsút – the home village of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán – will have access to much more substantial funding than any other foundation or sports club that applied for financial support in the form of tax credits. Atlatszo.hu read through the reports prepared for the Parliament’s Sports and Tourism Committee.
The government’s stated purpose of providing such tax credits was to support several different kinds of team sports, however, the ultimate winners of the provision are undeniably football teams. At a closer look, it is also apparent that the Felcsút Football Academy – providing training for the next generation of footballers in Orbán’s favorite team, Videoton – has not only been receiving the most amount of money but the financial support obtained by them is also significantly higher than any other competitor’s. As Felcsút is currently building its very own stadium, they will be eligible for 2.2 billion HUF, although the Szigetszentmiklós SC cannot complain either: the HFA plans to give them 839 million HUF in tax credits for next year. This is the sports club that two years ago signed a deal with Fradi (Ferencvárosi SC) to train its future football players.
And what about the other types of team sports? In 2011/2012, the Hungarian Ice Hockey Federation applied for 11.8 billion HUF in financial support but only 2.4 billion was approved (20.85 %). The Hungarian Handball Federation was luckier, 66 % of what they applied for got approved (7.9 billion HUF). 4.2 billion HUF went to the Hungarian Basketball Players’ Association, 64 percent of what they asked for. The two extremes are the Hungarian Water Polo Association and the afore-mentioned Hungarian Football Association: the former was given only 2.2 billion HUF out of the 24.8 billion HUF that they applied for (10.73 %), while the latter can claim 70 % of the funding it called for, which in the end amounts to 27.4 billion HUF.
Translated by Orsolya Gulyás