MLSZ hand Barczi new sporting director role

Having recently held several managerial roles in Hungarian football, Róbert Barczi has accrued a wide range of sports management experience, his most recent position as MLSZ's Competition Director having given him a comprehensive insight into Hungarian adult and youth football. The sporting director works in close cooperation with the Technical Committee and his assistant will be Csaba Fehér. Women's football also welcomes someone familiar into a new management role, László Kiss, who will focus on youth education.

Following his appointment Barczi told mlsz.hu: “The foundation laid down by the MLSZ Executive Committee in recent years must be capitalised upon in order to move our football in a new direction with a change of perspective. In the coming period, I'd like to work together with everyone who wants give everything for (the good of) football, because there is a need for all the knowledge and experience held within the football community, especially in the area of youth development, where a real turnaround is needed. The Technical Committee, having recently undergone a generational change in its membership, provides a suitable depth of expertise for this switch of perspective to become a reality.”

MLSZ's new sporting director stressed that the federation is currently focusing on finishing the recently-revised football season with all its endeavour, the biggest current challenge being to deal with this situation. He added that Csaba Fehér, a former Hungarian international footballer with experience of playing abroad and who is also a member of the afore-mentioned technical body, will join in with the work of the Executive Committee in the future.

With a background in youth and adult football coaching, Dr Róbert Barczi has been working as a sports administrator for more than a decade. He was the managing director of the Nyíregyháza Spartacus club for a year before working for five years as the head of the Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County Football Association and for five-and-a-half years as the general secretary of the county association.

Since 2015, Barczi has worked as the Competitions Director at MLSZ, during which time he has earned a UEFA CFM certificate, Europe's governing body also counting on his abilities as a UEFA match delegate in recent years. Furthermore, he is a member of the UEFA Players' Status, Transfer and Agents and Match Agent Committee and has successfully studied for an international Masters degree under the auspices of the European Sports Government.

Another to strengthen the federation's staff in addition to Róbert Barczi who was appointed on 5th May, is László Kiss, the 33-time former Hungarian international striker who served as the head coach of the women's international team between 2010 and 2013: “I'd like women’s youth football and the technical expertise (within it) to be given a boost, as these (two areas) are the basis for further development. The women's youth education programme should become the equal of the men's programme,” the new head of women's football said.