Stadler FC (Hungary)
Stadler was born in 1951 in a
homestead and lived his boring common life of a shepherd just after completing
the two years of compulsory military services. But indeed, there was something
strange about him. At 40 he got bored of shepherd life and tried something new:
he simply bought beer bottles and sold it for a higher fee to help himself
become a millionaire (or at least that’s the public version). Two years later
he thought he would get into the foodstuff market without any qualifications by
exporting commodities - which were useless for Hungarians – to Russia. Now I
think that’s a pretty evident indicator that it was at least risky (or even
dangerous) to try to build something on his wealth, mainly because his profit
wasn’t a regular and stable one – maybe that’s why nobody has become a
billionaire from selling bottles yet.
But this site and its fans are lucky, as Stadler
chose to build a football club. As his local club was fighting for promotion
while struggling financially, he just bought it instead of creating one to
change everything – by everything, I mean LITERALLY EVERYTHING. The
club was named Kisk艖r枚si LC when he became the owner, but later they changed
name every (!) season.
It all started in 1993 when Mr. Stadler thought
he’ll just buy the nearby team and customize it as he wants to. In their first
season, he changed the name to Kisk艖r枚si-Stadler FC, which happened to be the
first change of a lot. They competed in the second division back in the day, so
the minimum expectation was to fight for promotion. They reached the first
place of the league table (won by 2 points), which was the only one that meant
automatic promotion. But J贸zsef Stadler had an unexpected announcement after
winning: he stated that the club will move to the neighboring city where he
would build a stadium, too. Well, the building of the stadium took a year, but
during that, the club’s squad was significantly boosted after promotion. Some
sources say that even the future Ballon d’Or-winner Andriy Shevchenko played in
Stadler FC for a few weeks as a trial, but fortunately for the Ukrainian, the
club opted for another foreigner named Nichenko. And despite not signing Sheva,
the club brought some former Hungarian national team players to Kisk艖r枚s, who
played a key part in the club’s life.
After only a year the stadium was done, and it was
one of the most modern ones in the whole continent at the time: it had a
capacity of 21,000, four other training pitches, and a hotel which sometimes
functioned as a whorehouse, some sources write. The ambitious owner prepared
for another big thing: he wanted to invite either Bayern Munich, Barcelona or
Real Madrid for their stadium opening ceremony. The deals fell through though
which meant they waited until their first league match against Parmalat FC (now
MOL Feh茅rv谩r) which ended with a 0-0 draw. It’s fair to say that this was the
best year in the club’s history as they finished ninth and also set their
record attendance number of 25,000 spectators against FTC in one of the last
matches of the campaign.
At the end of the year, nothing special happened to
them, only what usually happens with overperforming small teams: their players
went to bigger clubs and players started considering this club as a springboard
one which meant it was easier to attract talented players but they always lost
them after a year or two. And about changing names: they got a main sponsor
Innstadt brewery, which meant their next name was Innstadt-Stadler FC, dropping
Kisk艖r枚s from the name forever as they moved to Akaszt贸. The team performed
stunningly in the autumn, but unfortunately, then came to the biggest collapse
in the club’s performances which they’ve ever seen which meant another 9th
place finish out of 18.
However, things turned around after Mr. Stadler’s
third season at the club and it was never the same again. A tax inspection was
inquired against J贸zsef Stadler, the best players left, and even if they could
bring in proper replacements, the sponsor was changed once again, after Ecker
took Innstadt’s place in the team name. Despite everything was against them,
they were fighting together. They survived automatic relegation but because of
their 16th place, they had to play against the 3rd position team of the second
division (Dunaferr) to stay up. They won, which meant at least one year in the
top flight even in this uncertain financial situation.
Well, their situation became 100% certain at the
start of the 1997/98 season when J贸zsef Stadler was officially found guilty of
tax evasion. When it became clear that Mr. Stadler could only get rich without
paying tax, the club lost its owner and it’s sponsor too, while everyone around
the club wanted to leave the sinking ship. The club’s last name was Ilzer-Stadler;
they, unfortunately, finished on the last place with only four wins in the
campaign. In their last match, the club was 0-2 down at the half time, while
still managed to get one last win to make it a good farewell.
Meanwhile, J贸zsef Stadler’s prison sentence was 9
years which was reduced to five – in fact, because of good behavior, he was
allowed out after two and a half years. He had a revolutionary idea, of which
he said, ”I shouldn’t have gone to prison because of that.” He thought he would
not pay tax, but spend it on his clubs instead. Nowadays, it’s quite common and
legal in Hungary where all the biggest clubs have a big percentage of their
budgets from taxes transferred from people to clubs. Stadler’s lawyer told him
”if you wanted a refund of what had been taken from you, the country would be
in debt” because the government confiscated everything he owned: 42 Mercedes
vans, 20 lorries, the hotels, his flats, his stadium, even his health spa.
The stadium was taken away from him but it remained
in its place, and if we look at capacities, his building is still in the top 10
in the country. But still, nobody has played a single match in it since 1998.
That being said, it’s not hard to guess, what its condition like. It’s closed
and nobody looks after it since G谩zszer FC played their last NB I match there.
Mr. Stadler was in prison three times and after
being released, his dream was always to buy the stadium back and organize
friendlies between the biggest Hungarian clubs and the ’90s Hungarian greats.
However, it always came true that he tried to get money to do it with illegal
businesses all the time. Everyone knew him in the Eastern-European market and
legends say he had 5-6 negotiations at one time. ”He made an offer for the
first group, walked to the other room, negotiated with another one, then came
back to turn down a third group’s offer. He was extremely busy.” He said the
stadium was profitable but ”when I built the stadium, that was the point when
the tax authorities probably started realizing what I had been doing.” What he
was doing indeed was spending more than €25 million of his taxes into his club
instead. He even published a book about his stories as ’The Stadler story’
which has 5 parts. Sadly, J贸zsef Stadler passed away at the age of 66, three
weeks after a stroke while giving signed copies to his books’ fans. In his last
interview, he said:” I haven’t stopped, I’ll try everything to get my stadium
back.”