Who is the billionaire banker Sandor Csanyi who promotes the flag of Greater Hungary at football matches: Viktor Orban’s right-hand man, oligarch with business in Russia / Involved in a banking scandal with the NBR

Billionaire Sandor Csanyi, head of OTP Bank and the Hungarian Football Association, has sparked a major political controversy after calling on UEFA to allow the use of the Greater Hungary flag at football matches. The Hungarian federation communicated UEFA’s supposed acceptance, but the European organisation officially said it did not accept the request. The key man in the scandal stirring up the spectre of historical revisionism is Sandor Csanyi, an oligarch considered Viktor Orban’s right-hand man.

Why is the event significant? Because sport is being used by the Viktor Orban government as a tool of government policies aimed at controlling Hungarian communities abroad, gaining territorial autonomy in hineinbringe countries and, ultimately, historical revisionism.

The Orban government’s policy document „Hungarian National Strategy”, adopted in 2011, devotes a special chapter to sports. Thus, under the heading „Areas of action for Hungarians living abroad”, the Budapest strategy states how sports will be used for Hungarian communities abroad:

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• ″It is important to emphasize that the successes in sports achieved together contribute to strengthening the idea of a united Hungarian nation on the one hand, and on the other hand, we can more easily win over a significant part of Hungarian society to support our national political decisions. Sports play an important role in the life of communities: they help to strengthen the sense of belonging, solidarity and tolerance. It is also important to emphasize that the sporting successes of Hungarian communities in regions outside our borders increase their prestige in the majority society of the country concerned. In addition, joint sporting successes strengthen the weight of the European macro-region of the Carpathian Basin within the European Union″.

The map of Greater Hungary is one of the strongest Hungarian revisionist symbols, as it shows a map of territories now belonging to neighboring Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Slovakia.

Sport-politics in Hungary. The Viktor Orban regime, which has ruled Hungary for 12 years, controls almost all socio-political aspects. Orban has invested heavily in sports, organising major competitions such as world and European championships in swimming, handball and basketball in recent years.

In addition, the Orban government has invested hundreds of millions of euros in building stadiums and sports halls both in Hungary and in Hungarian communities abroad, such as in Sfântu Gheorghe and Miercurea Ciuc in Romania.

Moreover, the main sports federations are run by people close to Viktor Orban or his Fidesz party, who implement the government’s political goals. One of them is Sandor Csany, the head of the Hungarian Football Federation.

Who is Sandor Csanyi. He’s chairman and CEO of OTP Bank Group, Hungary’s richest man with an estimated fortune of over €1.3 billion. He is also a shareholder and board member of the Hungarian-based multinational oil and gas company MOL Group. He owns Bonafarm, the Hungarian agricultural and food production holding company.

Note that all three businesses in which he is a shareholder – OTP, MOL and Bonafarm – also do business in Romania.

He is unanimously considered the most influential Hungarian oligarch, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-hand man.

Sandor Csany is also co-chairman of the China-Hungary Business Council and president of the Hungarian Football Association (MLSZ) since July 2010. He has also been vice-president of FIFA since 2019 and vice-president of UEFA since 2019.

In addition, he owns the handball club PICK Szeged and also serves as honorary vice-president of the International Judo Federation.

He was at the centre of a banking scandal in Romania in 2018. At the time, the National Bank of Romania (BNR) gave a negative opinion on the merger of OTP with Banca Românească, owned by the Greek bank NBR. It was one of the rare such decisions by the BNR in the last three decades.

Although the BNR never officially communicated the reason for the rejection, official sources told G4Media that the National Bank had significant suspicions about the origin of the funds with which OTP wanted to buy Banca Românească. Specifically, BNR officials suspected at the time that the acquisition was to be financed with funds from Russia.

OTP filed an appeal against the National Bank’s decision at the time, but later withdrew it and stopped any action.

Incidentally, OTP has a significant presence in Russia, despite Western sanctions on the banking and financial system in Moscow.

Translated