There will be no Celtic fans inside the Groupama Arena when Ange Postecoglou’s team face Ferencvaros tonight. If, as expected, the visiting players take the knee in support of racial equality ahead of kick-off in Budapest, there will be nothing to drown out the inevitable hostile response from the home fans.
The message that this “western” protest is not welcome in Hungary is stitched deeply into society. Some of it comes directly from senior officials, such as the Foreign Minister Péter Szijjarto, who has been outspoken against Uefa and Fifa for their treatment of the Hungarian FA over the punishments handed down for racist and homophobic behaviour of supporters.
The government controls large sections of the mainstream media. Its anti-immigration rhetoric has been normalised to the point of widespread acceptance. In a country which has needed time to open up to the world since the fall of communism, the populist government of the prime minister, Viktor Orban, is winning the battle of hearts and minds when it comes to public attitudes to integration of minorities and acceptance of what are seen as typically ‘western’ moral standards, such as the promotion of LGBT rights.
But there remains an active counter-movement in Hungary’s media. Miklos Ilku is deputy editor-in-chief of the centre-left website Index.hu. He was present when Hungarian fans clashed with police during the national team’s game against England at Wembley last month. As a reporter working in a media environment dominated by government dogma, he feels the frustration of seeing his country represented poorly on the international stage.
“The Hungarian media is very divided about all this,” Ilku says. “The right thinks that taking a knee is not normal and they take it as a provocation. LGBTQ stuff they think is provocation as well.
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“I am on the centre-left, and I think [anti-racism protests] are a great thing for society. Taking the knee and messages from players like Marcus Rashford on social media, they are small steps, but you have to begin somewhere. It’s helping football and society to improve.
“These fan groups you see at the stadiums are a minority. But who is responsible? Minority groups emerge from the majority. We have a social problem in Hungary.”
Whilst the main organs of mass media are dominated by government-aligned voices, Ilku has lately been welcomed into discussions on matters relating to inclusion of minorities. He believes that in diversifying a hitherto far-right message, society may still come to embrace those perceived western standards that are so vilified.
“In the last few weeks, I’ve started to see some openness from the other side,” he says. “They are open to hear our opinion. I was invited on a podcast three weeks ago with three journalists working for the government media. I was invited to represent the other side. This is a small improvement. A willingness to listen and start discussions.”
Hungary has had its reputation damaged, in the eyes of the football world, by an extremist minority that hurled monkey chants at Raheem Sterling and Jude Bellingham, yet these offenders exist on the radical fringe of society. Most supporters are guided by the direction of political and social discussion on TV, in newspapers and on podcasts. This is the place where the battle to drive racist sympathies out of Hungarian football will be won and lost.
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“There is a minority who behave in a racist way because they don’t even think that a monkey chant is racist,” Laszlo Borbely, who covered Hungary’s trip to Wembley for Index.hu last month, says. “They are insignificant.”
