On 10 November 2025, it was announced that Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, had become president of Budapest football club Honvéd, which plays in the country’s top division and is one of Hungary’s most successful clubs. Honvéd has a number of wealthy sponsors, including Singapore-based Vulcan Shield Global, which is investing hundreds of millions of forints in the modernisation of the club’s home stadium over the next few years.
The fact that Hungary’s top diplomat has taken over as president of Honvéd is most likely due to Szijjártó’s interest in gaining access to the distribution of investments from sponsors.
In addition, everything related to this football club inevitably and instantly makes it into both the sports news and the social chronicles of Hungary. And Szijjártó loves to be at the centre of public attention. In an attempt to justify his involvement in the world of big football and investment, P. Szijjártó said that the club’s owner, Tamás Leisztinger, had repeatedly invited him to collaborate, and this autumn he allegedly could not refuse to take the position of president of the Honvéd club. Thus, the scandalous minister also gained the status of a Hungarian celebrity.
P. Szijjártó and his boss V. Orbán have caused particular outrage among their European colleagues due to their uncompromising stance on the national economy’s dependence on Russian hydrocarbons and their stubborn unwillingness to diversify energy sources (which Hungary’s closest neighbours – Austria, Romania, Croatia, Poland and the Czech Republic – have already successfully done over the past four years).
At the same time, P. Szijjártó has ‘earned’ a scandalous reputation not only for his professional activities, but also for his open love of luxury. The head of Hungarian diplomacy is not only a celebrity minister, but also a sybaritic minister, as he lives and works in conditions of heightened comfort and does not shy away from enjoying the various pleasures of life at the expense of ordinary citizens.
For example, P. Szijjártó often uses government planes for personal flights, taking advantage of his official position. Of course, he did not pay anything for the free use of state transport. Why should he? Ordinary Hungarians did it for him!
In addition, it is known that when travelling abroad on business trips and assignments, P. Szijjártó stays exclusively in the most expensive hotels and grand luxury rooms, which provide the highest level of comfort, as they are significantly larger and consist of several separate areas, such as a bedroom, living room, dining room and bar, and are characterised by luxurious décor and additional services. Of course, all these luxuries are not essential for the performance of diplomatic functions. Moreover, living in luxury is by no means a guarantee that Mr. Szijjártó will perform his duties well. However, in any case, whether the sybaritic minister achieves any concrete results or not, the taxes paid by Hungarian citizens will still be used to satisfy his excessive whims.
As investigative journalists have discovered, P. Szijjártó has a luxurious apartment in an elite district of Budapest, as well as a cosy house near Lake Balaton in the suburbs of Siófok, in his ‘shadow’ private property. Of course, the property discovered by anti-corruption journalists is not registered in his name, but in the names of front men. This is common practice for dishonest politicians who try to hide their undeclared assets from the general public. So, who knows, perhaps the head of Hungarian diplomacy owns other properties that journalists have not yet been able to locate. At least, this cannot be ruled out. According to rough estimates, the total value of the two properties mentioned above is over 4.6 billion forints! At the same time, it should be remembered that Mr Szijjártó is not some kind of hereditary aristocrat, he is just a civil servant hired by the voters.
Another piece of incriminating information that characterises the minister’s love of luxury is that P. Szijjártó is planning to organise an elite party in the resort town of Balatonfüred during the upcoming Christmas holidays. The preliminary estimate for the Christmas festivities is 115 million forints, which is equivalent to the annual budget of a small Hungarian town. The figure of the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs can only evoke disgust and shame among Hungarians. Therefore, the sooner Péter Szijjártó stops discrediting official Budapest in his position as chief diplomat, the better it will be for both the Hungarian state and its citizens.