V-Híd, Lőrinc Mészáros’s company, is known for its involvement in major public infrastructure projects. But on 21 February 2023, the company’s senior executives were busy arranging financial support for two lesser-known non-governmental organizations. According to an internal document, they earmarked HUF 35 million (around 96 000 euros at the current exchange rate) for each organisation. What the two organisations had in common was that Anikó Lévai, the wife of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, had been involved with both.

One of the organisations is the Média a Családért Alapítvány, which emphasises the importance of family, marriage and having children, and awards an annual prize to journalists covering these subjects. Anikó Lévai is the patron of the award and regularly speaks at the ceremonies. On one occasion, Viktor Orbán himself presented the award on behalf of his wife.

The other organisation is the Carola Association, registered in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, which was established to protect the heritage and values of the Hungarian minority in Transylvania. Although several earlier reports identified Lévai as one of the association’s founding members, the organisation has now told Direkt36 that she was not among its founders and “has never been a member of our Association, either in the past or at present”. They added that Lévai “has no professional relationship whatsoever with the association”.

Earlier reports, however, suggest that Lévai had some connection to the organisation. According to one article, she attended the 2015 inauguration of a tombstone in Cluj-Napoca commemorating Carola Szilvássy. The restoration of the tomb was one of the Carola Association’s first initiatives.. One of the association’s founders said at the time that the restoration of the tomb had been made possible “with the substantial assistance of Anikó Lévai and donations from private individuals”. The official website of Viktor Orbán, who was prime minister at the time, also reported on the ceremony. At the event, the prime minister’s wife delivered a lenghty speech.

In 2022, Lévai also attended the Cluj-Napoca premiere of a documentary about Carola Szilvássy. The film was made by the Carola Association.

We sent the Carola Association several questions about these reports, but have not received a response so far.

2023 was not the first time that V-Híd, a company that grew substantially through public infrastructure contracts, supported these organisations. Documents obtained by Direkt36 show that the two organisations received around 360 000 euros in funding from the railway construction company in 2023 and 2025 combined.

Last year, Mészáros’s railway construction company provided around 82 000 euros to the Média a Családért Alapítvány. According to the foundation’s annual report, it received approximately 95 000 euros in donations that year, meaning that most of its total funding came from Mészáros’s company. The railway construction firm has supported the foundation regularly, providing nearly 180 000 euros since 2023.

Mészáros’s company has also regularly funded the Carola Association. According to V-Híd’s internal records, the association received a total of 178 000 euros from the railway construction company in 2023 and 2025.

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Krisztina Fodor, executive director of the Media for the Family Foundation, confirmed in response to our inquiry that they had received funding from V-Híd. “Anikó Lévai is not a member of our board of trustees and has neither a formal nor an informal working relationship with our foundation. She has attended our award ceremonies on several occasions as a guest, which we consider an honor,” the executive director added.

Documents obtained by Direkt36 reveal that V-Híd has supported numerous other organizations linked to politicians and figures close to the government in recent years. Substantial sums also went to sports organizations associated with Lőrinc Mészáros.

These documents are part of the files obtained by Direkt36 that detail the internal operations of V-Híd, a company that won numerous high-value government contracts under the Orbán administrations. Based on these documents, we previously reported that the company regularly provided hundreds of millions in funding to Megafon, which ran social media campaigns in support of Fidesz. We also wrote about how the money was spent on luxury trips and how the company owned by Viktor Orbán’s father got work on government funded constructions with the help of Mészáros’s railway construction company.

V-Híd is one of the most profitable companies in the Mészáros empire, deriving the majority of its revenue from government contracts. None of the projects listed on its website appears to involve private-sector or foreign clients. For example, the company won the tender for the construction of the Southern Ring Railway project, and it is also participating as a subcontractor in the construction of the Hungarian section of the Budapest–Belgrade railway line that worth 2,2 billion euros and in the expansion of the M1 highway.

We sent V-Híd a detailed list of questions, but the company did not respond to our inquiry. We tried to reach Anikó Lévai through Fidesz, but received no response.

Women’s culture, sports journalists

A few days ago, G7 reported that V-Híd spends a great deal on grants—roughly  57,6 million euros over nine years. There were years when it allocated more than 5 percent of its total revenue to such purposes.

Articles have appeared in the past suggesting that Lőrinc Mészáros’s company has a preference for supporting organizations linked to figures close to Fidesz. However, documents obtained regarding V-Híd’s internal operations now provide an even clearer picture of which organizations the Mészáros company—which has grown significantly through state investments—deemed worthy of support.

According to the construction company’s internal documents, in the fall of 2020 it provided a one-time donation of 54 900 euros to the Nők Magyarországért Klub Egyesületet, which was founded at the initiative of Katalin Novák. The former president founded the organization while she was still a state secretary with the goal of “promoting Hungarian women’s culture—including the lifestyle, mindset, and femininity that underpin it—as well as motherhood and the gift of life as life’s unparalleled blessing to the widest possible audience.” The association’s website and Facebook page have since been shut down, and it has had no income in recent years.

Two years ago, 54 900 euros was also transferred to the Magyar Sportújságírók Szövetsége (Hungarian Sports Journalists’ Association). Internal documents suggest that V-Híd had supported the organization previously as well, as an internal record lists a 2020 grant.

György Szöllősi had served as president of the Hungarian Sports Journalists’ Association since 2015, but he resigned from that position this past August. Szöllősi also worked as editor-in-chief of Nemzeti Sport, a Hungarian sports newspaper for the past ten years and maintained a good relationship with the former prime minister. Ahead of the 2026 parliamentary elections, he was the one who sent Viktor Orbán’s letter to the sports journalists’ organization he led. Under the Fidesz governments, he served as a special envoy for Hungarian soccer affairs and received a diplomatic passport, and took part in dozens of trips abroad funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

V-Híd provided nearly 87 900 euros in funding to an organization called the “Dr. András Cser-Palkovics Team for the City” in 2022. That year, the association received a total of 88 900 euros in funding, meaning that almost all of the funding it received came from Mészáros’s company. The organization actively supported Fidesz’s election campaign ahead of the parliamentary elections. “We had the honor of organizing Fidesz’s national campaign closing event, at which Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, delivered a speech,” reads the 2022 annual report.

András Cser-Palkovics member of the Fidesz party has been mayor of Székesfehérvár since 2010. However, he did not found the association in 2019; it was established by one of his colleagues.

“This association was established in 2019 as a civic initiative with the aim of having an organization support my local election campaign at the time. They asked if they can use my name, and I said yes,” the mayor wrote to Direkt36. He added that “I did not hold any official role in the association, nor am I aware of its legal or financial affairs.”

Cser-Palkovics emphasized that “the association did not receive any financial support from the local government” and “I did not receive any financial support from the association,” which is no longer active.

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The railroad construction company has repeatedly supported civil society organizations linked to Lőrinc Mészáros. For example, four years ago, they transferred nearly 300 million forints to the Mészáros Group’s own foundation, the Pro Filii Foundation.

Billions for soccer in Felcsút

The railway construction company’s largest contributions were related to sports.

It was already known that the Felcsút soccer academy received about 27,4 million euros in public funding after 2010 and was one of the biggest beneficiaries of Hungary’s TAO scheme year after year. The essence of the TAO system is that profitable Hungarian companies can donate a portion of their taxes directly to sports clubs instead of paying them to the state.

The president of the foundation operating the academy is Lőrinc Mészáros, but former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán exercises the founder’s rights. According to V-Híd’s records, the company has provided significant financial support to the foundation on multiple occasions, most of which consisted of TAO grants. There are documents detailing additional contributions. In 2022, the company made a donation of 500 million forints to the foundation. According to the academy’s website, most of the sponsors belong to Mészáros’s corporate group.

V-Híd has also entered into sponsorship agreements with sports organizations. The essence of these agreements is that V-Híd provides financial or other resources to the recipient, which in turn offers V-Híd advertising opportunities.

V-Híd regularly entered into advertising contracts worth 1.3 million euros with the company behind the Felcsút soccer academy. We also found sponsorship agreements with the sport club of Bicske, which operated under the presidency of former Fidesz Member of Parliament Zoltán Tessely.

The Bicske club did not respond to our questions, but they did state that they are “concerned” that the current government is “terminating contracts with V-Híd Zrt. and excluding it from public procurement procedures,” referring to the government decisions announced last week.

Funds were also allocated to support a foreign soccer team. When Lőrinc Mészáros purchased the Osijek soccer club, he said: “Everything needed for good soccer is here—only the money is missing. And I’ll bring you that money!” He then made good on that promise: two years ago, he stated that he had invested a total of 150 million euros in the Osijek club. According to G7’s article, the final bill is even higher, possibly between 60 and 70 billion forints.

Internal documents from V-Híd reveal that part of the money—more than 17 million euros—came from a construction company that had been winning government projects one after another. The value of the company’s sponsorship contracts with the team ran into several million euros annually. After the parliamentary elections in April, the Croatian press reported that Mészáros might withdraw his support for the Osijek soccer team.

Soccer wasn’t the only sport in which Mészáros’s company paid for advertising. Three years ago, the former prime minister’s son-in-law, István Tiborcz, joined Mészáros as a shareholder in the company that operates the Hungarian Golf Association through Tiborcz’s company, BDPST Zrt. According to an article by 24.hu, they also agreed that the office could be moved to the Botaniq Máriavölgyi Golf Club’s headquarters in Alcsútdoboz. Lőrinc Mészáros’s railroad construction company regularly entered into sponsorship agreements with the Golf Assosiation: over two years, they paid the assosiation about 302 200 euros.

The federation told Direkt36 that the sponsorship received from V-Híd was intended to support two domestic tournaments, in exchange for which the company was allowed to appear at the event venues and in related publications. They added that “the contracts were signed by the Hungarian Golf Association’s previous board” and that there has been no contract between the two parties since 2024.

Illustration: Péter Somogyi (szarvas) / Telex

Pierre Romera Zhang, member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, assisted with the technical processing of the documents cited in this article via the Datashare platform.

We used the Opten service to access Hungarian company data.