Hungry in Hungary

The world renowned Hungarian soccer player Ferenc Puskas once said: "A little bit of money gets you a little bit of soccer. Big money gets you big soccer." The now-deceased star could very well have been talking about his own club -- Honved of Budapest -- where he first honed his skills.

But how did a team that was once one of the greatest in the world find itself -- until recently -- falling apart in a stadium which looked as though it should have been condemned? To turn things around the club needed money, but how? And from whom?

Enter American millionaire -- and some would call him savior -- George F. Hemingway. A man of Hungarian descent, he's now owner of the team in what many would call "a risky business."

"I'm a contrarian," Hemingway told Deutsche Welle. "I happen to think that where there is trouble, where other people run, you go in the opposite direction. And sometimes you get something good.

"I happen to think that there's value here, and with consistent work we should be able to build something," he continued. "We built a beautiful stadium; we did a lot of things, and we built a great team. We're looking for sponsors and I think in the next 12 months we're going to find the sponsors we need. We're going to give them value and long-term relationships, and we're going to operate this team profitably."

Hemingway is a corporate lawyer who first made his money in real estate in California. He then came to Hungary in 1988 and started to invest, eventually opening up restaurant chains and other businesses. But he's also a soccer referee and his love of the game took over last year when he took over Honved. He has big plans, including setting up a soccer academy for talented youth players. Yet, when he first saw the Honved stadium he had his reservations.

"Well, I made a decision never to use the toilet here. That was one of the decisions. The other decision was I don't want to see the whole stadium. I saw half of it and I said, 'Well, that's enough.' And then I started sending my people in to start the reconstruction."

Hemingway's investment is most evident on match days. When Honved took on Hungarian champions Debrecen recently, 5,000 home fans created an atmosphere in the new stadium to rival any in Hungary and even some in the bigger European leagues. They flock to Hemingway's new arena in the hope that they are witnessing the future of Hungarian soccer.

Honved the backbone of Golden Team

Honved used to be the envy of Europe in the early 1950s. Supported by the country's military, it was home to most of the players who made up the Hungarian national team that was nicknamed the "Magical Magyars."

That Hungary team went undefeated for four-and-a-half years until the final of the 1954 World Cup against Germany and Honved players like Puskas, Sandor Kocsis and Zoltan Czibor were sought after around the world.

In the end, that trio did leave to play in Western Europe as did other teammates thanks to the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against the Soviet Union. Since then the club that won the national championship 13 times has been in steady decline, culminating in relegation four years ago and a flirtation with bankruptcy.

This is a league where it's not unusual for a team to fold mid-season, to have serious crowd
disturbances, and to have miserable results.

Financial insecurities remain

Jena Knazy, sports reporter at Hungary's international broadcaster Duna TV, is crossing his fingers for Hemingway and Honved.

"I'll be honest, I really worried about him to begin with and still do today," said Knazy. "He's come with an incredible amount of good will to Hungarian soccer, but we've had other people like that before him -- and they've all left. So I'm really happy that he's getting things done and that he's still here, investing. So with all my heart I'm really rooting for him because I can count on just one hand how many people there are here like him. I just hope he hangs in there."

But will crossed fingers be enough? Jonathan Wilsson is the soccer correspondent for the Financial Times and author of "Behind the Curtain," a look at eastern European soccer. He says there have been some jarring financial realities for that part of the continent and Hungary continues to have its problems.

"When state control ended and state funding ended with the fall of Communism in '89, the clubs had to find new financing from private sources and move into new economic climates where people weren't experienced in that way of handling things," Wilsson said. "That happened right at the time that the Champions League came in '92, and the immediate effect of the Champions League was to make the rich richer and the poor poorer."

Still, Hemingway doesn't seem daunted. He's optimistic about the future despite what he's up against. "I think we're going to do okay," he said. "I think we're going to be profitable down the road. I think we're going to have a marvelous soccer academy and I think we're going to have fans. I think we're going to have fun."

Honved won the big match against champions Debrecen 2-1, a game full of skill and high tempo which wouldn't have looked out of place in one of the top European leagues. So who knows? Maybe George F. Hemingway's decision to invest in the topsy-turvy world of Hungarian soccer wasn't such a strange decision to make, after all.

Maybe he saw something that a lot of people didn't see, and maybe he's going to get those returns that he's hoping for.