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Tax credits for sports clubs: Orbán’s village profits largely again

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

Full article in Hungarian

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