Sándor Csányi speaks about the racism problem, the NBI, NBII & Marco Rossi.

Sándor Csányi, president of the MLSZ has spoken about the problem of racism at National Team games, the future of Marco Rossi, the NBI & the NBII in an interviews with portfolio.hu All credit goes to them for the contents of this article.

Among the matches of the Hungarian national team this year, the amazing match against the French, the Germans or even the English was on one side, of which we can be really proud, and on the other, the fan riots, racist scandals and the closed goal matches. How do you experience this duality?

It is very sad that tens of thousands are unable to attend matches because of a ten of hundreds of disruptions,, because the stadiums will be closed. The procedure for both UEFA and FIFA was very strict, overall I feel we would deserve a little less punishment. At the same time, it is true that there is a precise set of rules for disciplinary matters, which also limits the room for manoeuvre of disciplinary committees quite a bit. There is zero tolerance for racist and other exclusionary manifestations, and unfortunately, even a single act of a supporter can result in even a closed-door punishment. We need to adapt to this, and in addition to pursuing this behaviour in general, we need to find a way to keep these people away from the stadiums.

The phenomenon is not new, but so far it has not been possible to curb it.

There are consultations in this case, we are planning to introduce a vein scanner in the stadiums, we are trying to support the identity of the perpetrators with documents and evidence in a way that can be assessed by the courts. The biggest problem is that it is very difficult to make a sound recording in a stadium, to prove who said what, but you can clearly see who is throwing, who is provoking the players with monkey movements, and so on. We have agreed with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner that we will properly identify the disruptors and that those who bring heavy punishment on the necks of their supporters and the alliance will be banned from football pitches forever.

Until we can solve this, it has also been suggested that we may need to close the B-middle, despite the fact that there are also a lot of fans out there who behave in a completely acceptable way and add a lot to the atmosphere of the stadium, to support the team. But it would still be a smaller loss than if 65,000 chairs were empty in the Puskás Arena.

The national team’s performance at the European Football Championship was a great success in many ways, many said it was a breakthrough, and then we got back and forth from the Albanians, and overall, the World Cup qualifier was a disappointment. Will Marco Rossi remain the federal captain even after that?

Yes. We talked to Mr. Rossi, he will remain the federal captain of the Hungarian national team until the end of his contract, ie until 2025, and I am confident that we will be able to conclude a new contract with him after that.

I trust Marco Rossi, he put together a good team overall, it’s no coincidence that he also had inquiries, not from bad teams, but we agreed to stay.

According to many, NB II is actually the Hungarian league, where Hungarian players play, there are teams from big rural cities, while NB I is a distorted tournament with a lot of money, lots of foreign players, clubs in the capital and teams in small towns. What about this statement?

I feel that the standard of the Hungarian first class, even if it obviously lags behind the top championships, has improved significantly in the recent period. I also don’t think it is good that the traditional teams of big cities, such as Győr, Pécs, Szeged and Békéscsaba, do not play in NB I.

We are also thinking of increasing the number of NB I and reducing NB II in parallel.

Part of the business model for several leading teams in the region is to sell locally raised young players to European top leagues every year, just think of Dinamo Zagreb. We don’t really see Hungarian academics in top Italian, Spanish or English teams, they often don’t even get to NB I.

I am very opposed to the fact that there are so many foreigners in the Hungarian teams, it is incomprehensible to me and it is also incomprehensible why the owners are not tougher on this issue. There is an attitude that the coach’s business cannot be influenced, because he is responsible for the performance of the team. I would hire a coach to set guidelines for him, and I would say that because I also respect the interests of Hungarian football, I give preference to young Hungarians. In contrast, coaches want to survive every match, want to keep their jobs, and don’t really care what the universal interest of Hungarian football is.

Fradi has still had international success in recent years, but there is a lot of space behind it, and this year no Hungarian team has experienced the cup spring. Is there really no other solution, more money needs to be poured into Hungarian live football?

I don’t think more money is needed, I am convinced that effective youth education is the solution. Róbert Barczi became the sports director of the MLSZ, he developed a very good recruitment system, which is accompanied by support, and although it is not through us that the state-sponsored academies are supported, the relationship between the management of the academies and the MLSZ is finally very good. We build on each other’s work, and the prescribed tasks, which are accompanied by support, are also checked. The other thing that is quite clear today is that you need to focus on training youth coaches. The biggest lag is not in the preparation of the over-14 age group, but in the period between 6-14 years. The Belgian consultancy Double Pass has found that the academies are doing a good job, but the raw material is of poorer quality, than in Western European academies. Training and skills development at a younger age should be given priority. Another important finding was that many academies do not pay enough attention to individual training. So we see the problem, and in order to solve it, significant progress is expected in coaching training, including the training of youth coaches, which I hope will be seen relatively quickly in youth education.