Foul play: sports clubs can’t repay 7 billion forints in misspent tax funds

Following the settlement of tax benefit (tao) funds for the period 2022–26 covering six spectator team sports, the sports state secretariat of the Ministry of Interior is seeking to recover 21 billion forints on grounds of unauthorised use.

Attila Kálnoki-Kiss, state secretary for sport, announced on his Facebook page on Tuesday that over the past few weeks they had conducted a detailed review of the corporate tax (tao) settlements for the six sports concerned — ice hockey, handball, basketball, football, volleyball, and water polo — covering the period between 2022 and 2026.

He highlighted that during this period approximately 500 billion forints in support had reached nearly 2,500 sports organisations; however, not all of them had used the funds derived from companies’ tax contributions in accordance with the relevant legislation, and as a result the sponsor — on the basis of settlements completed to date — is seeking to recover more than 21 billion forints from the sports organisations.

He added that in 121 cases, however, involving more than 7 billion forints, it had not been possible to recover the state support.

The state secretary for sport stressed that in the cases in question, the sponsor had turned to the relevant authority, the National Tax and Customs Administration.

“The NAV has so far successfully proceeded in a total of more than 1.98 billion forints, an amount that has already been returned to the state treasury. Enforcement proceedings are ongoing in 241 cases, targeting more than 10.3 billion forints: 62 cases in handball, 42 in basketball, 121 in football, 13 in volleyball, and 3 in water polo. However, in 121 cases — worth more than 7 billion forints — the recovery of state support was unsuccessful,” detailed Attila Kálnoki-Kiss, who noted that enforcement had failed 30 times in handball, 18 times in basketball, 46 times in football, 25 times in volleyball, and 2 times in water polo. In basketball, a further 12 creditor claims are pending, along with 4 in handball and 2 in football, which are not yet being handled by the authority.

He stressed that the “goal of the sports secretariat of state is to establish a transparent sports financing system.”

Artificial intelligence was used for the translation of parts of the original Hungarian text.