Politics

Soccer nut Viktor Orbán has World Cup thoughts

Published

1 hour ago

July 14, 2026

Viktor Orbán — Hungary’s former prime minister, a Donald Trump acolyte and an avid soccer fan — is set to attend both semifinals and the final of the World Cup.

Despite an endorsement from the U.S. president, Orbán lost Hungary’s election in a landslidein April, and has made few public appearances since. Hungarian outlet Index reported that the former prime minister, who remains leader of his Fidesz party, traveled to the U.S. on Monday to attend the World Cup.

Speaking to Index, Orbán said that he could not predict the result of tonight’s Spain-France matchup but that France was the better team.

Orbán went on to compare the match to the 1954 World Cup final, in which West Germany upset the overwhelming favorite Hungary 3-2. “We were the best team, but we still couldn’t win,” Orbán said.

Meanwhile, Orbán’s party has never looked weaker at home. On Monday, Fidesz’s parliamentary leader Gergely Gulyás resigned from his leadership post, and the Hungarian parliament passed a sweeping constitutional amendment ousting a number of top officials whom Orbán appointed, including the country’s president.

“Orban is abandoning his dwindling followers to attend the World Cup (with no Hungarian team still playing),” said former U.S. State Department official Daniel Fried on X. “Not a great look.”

Orbán was a semiprofessional soccer player while earning his law degree in the 1980s, and his government invested heavily in soccer during his 16-year rule. He founded his own soccer club, Puskás Akadémia, in 2007.

Politics

Where France and Spain have never stopped playing on the same team

Published

12 minutes ago

July 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

There may be no more durable experiment in Spanish-French teamwork than the existence of Andorra. Since the Middle Ages, the landlocked principality has two heads of state, one from each side of its border.

But even though both of the larger countries that engulf it are founding members of the European Union — and the ski-tourism-heavy economy runs on euros — Andorra is now struggling for acceptance into the European Union.

For a country with a population of less than 100,000 people, Andorra has a complicated political setup. It is ruled by the sitting President of France, and the Bishop of the Catalan city of La Seu d’Urgell, who hold responsibility for the territory as “co-princes.” (The state also has a Prime Minister, Xavier Espot Zamora, and a 28-member parliament.) It’s in the United Nations and the Council of Europe, but integration with Brussels remains a divisive issue.

The territory struck an “association agreement” with the European Commission in 2024. Once ratified, the deal would allow Andorra a similar level of participation in the EU’s single market to Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, and to benefit from free movement of people, goods, services and capital if they follow many of the bloc’s regulations. (In a snub for the country, Andorra won’t gain full access to the EU’s financial services market immediately, due to fears that it is too lax on policing its own powerful finance industry.)

The domestic politics mirror that in other European nations: with those in favor of closer links looking forward to the economic benefits of EU single market access, while those against are downbeat about immigration from the EU to the tiny principality. Polling late last year showed that 35 percent of Andorra residents polled see the deal positively, while 34 percent see it negatively.

But Andorra can not clear its own path to Brussels. Its association agreement was negotiated together with San Marino, and now Bulgaria’s objection to the San Marino deal, and both deals are part of the same microstate treaty. (The two countries are intertwined in sport, as well: Andorra’s best-ever performance in a World Cup qualifying match came over San Marino, a 3-0 victory in 2021. It was one of only 14 international victories for Andorra since being recognized by FIFA in 1996.)

Participation in international events has been lukewarm in Andorra, the only country to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest without reaching a final. It competed for five years starting in 2004, with its best result a 12th-place finish in a 2007 semi-final. The country’s national broadcaster cites financial difficulties as the reason for not taking part since 2009.