Hungary's MOL Group has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Budapest-based Ujpest football club from Belgian businessman Roderick Duchatelet. Over the years, Viktor Orban’s cronies and allies have effectively colonised Hungary’s top football, and Ujpest became the last among the 12 top clubs to lose its "independence."

MOL could "do more for the success of Ujpest FC as an owner, which can only strengthen Hungarian football further," said Peter Ratatics, MOL's executive in charge of retail services, who will represent the company at the club.

The transaction is expected to close at the end of April. The parties did not disclose the sale price. A few months earlier, the Belgian owner asked for HUF14bn (€36mn) to sell the club, but the prospective buyer backed off after due diligence.

There have been rumours over the possible sale of the club for long and according to Telex.hu, Prime Minister Viktor Orban played an active role in intermediating between the parties. He has met his friend MOL chairman Zsolt Hernadi to discuss the sale in person.

Hungary’s populist leader has used football to score political goals, spending billions of euros since 2010 on improving football infrastructure and building at least two dozen new stadiums. Funding for these projects came from the TAO tax scheme, which allowed companies to receive generous tax breaks if they donated money to a sports team.

Anti-corruption NGO Transparency International fought for years in court to have the TAO financing released, which showed that political cronies and allies of Orban and his home village Felcsut received the most money.

Besides TAO, companies running football clubs are holding an advantage in public procurements to finance clubs that otherwise would not operate profitably on a market basis as revenue ticket sales are minimal except for Ferencvaros. Television rights constitute a major revenue source, but these are highly overvalued, and seen as another form of state subsidy by state media.

Ujpest will be the first sports club in Hungary owned by a Budapest-listed company. MOL has actively supported sports clubs and it was the main sponsor of Szekesfehervar-based top-tier football club Videoton until 2022, a club close to the heart of Orban.

Next to the home of the prime minister lies the smallest football stadium in Hungary in his home village Felcsut, home to division one Puskas Akademia FC, named after Hungary’s legendary striker Ferenc Puskas. The local football academy was founded by Orban's childhood friend Lorinc Meszaros, who has grown to become Hungary’s most powerful oligarch.

Founded in June 1885, Ujpest is the second-oldest and one of the most successful football clubs in Hungary, having won a total of 39 major trophies, including 20 championships. In the 1970s, the purple and whites were ranked among the top teams in Europe, playing in the same league as their Spanish, English and the German peers.  

Ujpest is well-known for its passionate fanbase and for the bitter rivalry with Ferencvaros over the decades that was often marred by fan violence. The last derby between the two is most remembered by banners with scathing political messages against the government and Ferencvaros, which is often criticised for being the darling club of the regime.

According to the accounts of Viktor Orban, Ujpest was his favourite club in his youth years. During his first term as prime minister between 1998 and 2002, the Budapest-based club was the only team to participate in the government’s stadium reconstruction programme, but after 2010 the club was more or less the stepchild, excluded from the scheme.