A no-staff firm was asked to bid for two huge Hungarian sports events

The investigative site Átlátszó, EUalive’s media partner in Hungary, is still opening the books on how the Orbán governments handed out public contracts. The latest case is blunt. When two major international sports events had to be reassigned in a hurry, the state agency in charge invited four companies to bid. One of them had no employees and no revenue.

The events are the 2026 World Athletics Ultimate Championship and the IJF Judo Grand Slam, which open today (11 September) and are expected to draw tens of thousands of spectators. They were awarded, for 3.7 billion forints (about €10.2 million), to IRUB Kft. after a negotiated tender with no public notice. IRUB has ties to former deputy state secretary for sport Gábor Schmidt. Until March a business partner of Gyula Balásy, the businessman who long dominated state events, was also a co-owner.

That is the winning firm. The stranger fact is who else was asked to bid.

How a frozen empire created a rush job

The two championships were not supposed to go to IRUB. They sat inside a 75 billion-forint (about €206 million) framework that Balásy’s companies had already won. In the spring the tax authority froze those firms’ accounts. On 11 June the National Event Organising Agency (NRÜ) concluded they could not deliver. On 23 June it tore up the contract and went looking for a replacement on a short deadline.

After what it calls a market survey, NRÜ invited four names: Hardrock, Pro Event Hungary, IRUB and Flyingfish. Only IRUB and Flyingfish offered to bid. Flyingfish never put in a final offer. IRUB took the contract. The Public Procurement Authority accepted the agency’s claim that so few firms were free in festival season that a closed procedure was justified.

Fake competition

Flyingfish Kft. was founded in 2013. It has no staff. Over five years it has barely traded. Last year’s net sales were zero. The year before: 9.2 million forints (about €25,000). Átlátszó found no winning public tenders in its name. The majority owner is Sándor László Pellet.

NRÜ says it invited Flyingfish because of work on the 2017 Budapest world aquatics championships, and admits the firm has not run a comparable state or international sports event since — “which is also reflected in its turnover.”

Former MP Ákos Hadházy is blunter. A short deadline may excuse an invited tender, he told Átlátszó. Inviting a firm with no staff, no recent references and a zero balance sheet does not. “That can have only one purpose: to fake competition.”

The other odd invitee

The fourth company on the list, Pro Event Hungary, is not much sturdier. It was founded in 2024, has no employees, took in 10.5 million forints (about €29,000) last year and made a loss. Its owner is Miklós Gábor Zelcsényi, once programme officer for the TISZA party.

NRÜ cites his triathlon and mass-sport experience, and a related firm at the same address. Zelcsényi’s name had already appeared in the scramble to replace Balásy on the 20 August national-day show in Budapest. Reporting by G7 and documents published by Hadházy show him asking Balásy’s Lounge group for budgets and technical details before the official call for bids, citing a government commissioner. The commissioner says he did not read the emails. Fidesz said it would go to the procurement authority; Mi Hazánk filed a criminal complaint; the interior ministry opened an inquiry.

Zelcsényi left front-line TISZA work after the tax authority questioned him in 2025 as a suspect in an older triathlon-funding case. That file had lain largely dormant since 2019.

Firms that were never asked

Átlátszó wrote to 25 event agencies listed by the national organisers’ association. Eight replied, including Roxer, which has competed against Balásy for multi-billion-forint framework deals. All eight said NRÜ never contacted them about the athletics championship or the judo Grand Slam.

Lounge itself, answering Átlátszó within hours, said other Hungarian firms have handled parts of big events – and that, besides Lounge, almost none could take on this scale alone.

That is the pattern Átlátszó keeps documenting from the Orbán years into the scramble that followed: huge sums, closed procedures, and invitation lists that include companies which, on paper, look like they could not organise a village fete, let alone a world championship.

The article in Hungarian by EUalive’s partner Átlátszó can be found here.

Caption: An image taken with a drone shows the National Athletics Centre, venue of the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, Hungary, 11 September 2026. EPA/Zoltan Mathe