The Empire Is Round: Egyptian-Hungarian Encounters Around the English Game, 1924–34

After the Egyptian national football team defeated Hungary in the 1924 Olympic tournament, Hungarian sports journalists, fans, and players developed an obsession about the African country. In the following decade, various Hungarian club teams and the national side visited Cairo and Alexandria to play exhibition matches but also to enjoy luxurious holidays in an ‘exotic’ setting. For Egyptian and Hungarian officials and governments, these encounters offered chances to improve diplomatic and trade relations in the shadow of the British Empire. Some journalists even drew parallels between the Egyptian struggle for independence and Hungarian nationalist ideas. This intensive relationship ended with the Hungarian victory over Egypt in the 1934 World Cup that was staged by Mussolini, who started a brutal invasion of Ethiopia only a couple of months later in an atmosphere of rising racism and international tensions.