The Telegraph takes up the story:
‘On August 14 of this year, Real Madrid travelled to Budapest to play a testimonial in honour of one of their most glorious former stars, that legend of world football, the great Ferenc Puskas. The game had supposedly been conceived as a means of helping to pay for the treatment of Puskas, who suffers from a form of Alzheimer's.
‘The result? Real Madrid received a fee of £892,000; Puskas' wife received just £7,000 towards his treatment. That night in Budapest, the mask which the beautiful game wears slipped, to show football's ugly side. It is not a story of corruption, but one of grotesque incompetence and the brutality of business.
‘Puskas' wife has been left distressed and without the promised trust fund to pay for her husband's treatment. The company who organised the match have buried their heads in the sand, while Real Madrid claim to have been kept in the dark.
‘Puskas, 78, remains under 24-hour medical supervision in a private room on the sixth floor of state-owned Kutvolgy hospital in Budapest. The sportsman who defected from Soviet-controlled Hungary in 1956 to delight the world, and Real Madrid, with his dancing feet, spending 25 years in exile, is now imprisoned by his own health, spending most of his day in bed, or looking out of the window of his room.
‘The match was organised by Trendsport, a small Hungarian promotions company, who have failed to contact the Puskas family since the match. Financial backing was provided by Trigranit, a large Hungarian construction company, and it was through a spokesman for Trigranit, owned by multi-millionaire Sandor Demjan, that the match was first announced on June 21. It was the first time that Puskas' wife, Elizabeth, had heard that the match would be taking place.
‘After the match, Real Madrid reportedly commanded expenses of £892,000 to play the game, which included a hotel bill of £68,500 for their two-night stay at the Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal. One insider told Telegraph Sport that one room used for the stay contained only shirts and footballs.
‘When the sums were done, the Puskas family received just £7,000. On Saturday, when I sat having lunch with Mrs Puskas in the Krisztina district of Budapest, they had still received no further money to assist in the health and extra treatment of the great former Real Madrid star.
‘Real Madrid's income increased 17 per cent to £183.8 million in the year ended June 30, 2005, according to accounts mailed to shareholders of the Spanish club. Significantly, those figures make Real Madrid the richest, and indeed biggest, club in the world.
‘Elizabeth Puskas refuses to criticise Real Madrid, but was close to tears as she explained to from inside her smart apartment in the Krisztina district of Budapest that since the testimonial, she has not heard a word from anyone involved with organising the game.
‘Elizabeth, in her Seventies, has diabetes, and a heart problem. "There are times now when I wish this match had never happened," she explained. "It has made me ill. For five years I have spent all my money on my husband - for extra medical care, massage, physiotherapy, whatever I could do for him to make him more comfortable.
‘"But people have been discussing the financial affairs of myself and Pancho [Ferenc] on television and radio as if they have been through all our papers. It's ridiculous, and very unfair. I have been invited onto television and radio to talk about this, but I am not going to lower myself to that level."
‘Mrs Puskas had to leave the room as she explained, trembling, the ill health this situation around her has caused. And Puskas, what does he think ? "My poor little one," she said, shaking her head. "Most days he is not happy. He just looks ahead, or out of the window. He has periods of lucidity, when Aniko, or the grandchildren, come and it lifts him out of his present state. But he is not happy."
‘I contacted Jose Luis Lopez Serrano, Real Madrid's director of foreign affairs, on Saturday. Was he aware that Mrs Puskas was in a state of turmoil over what had happened since the match? Did he know that Mrs Puskas had been left in the dark over the trust fund that was to be set up?
‘Serrano was not aware of this. He said: "We had a meeting with several parties: the Hungarian Federation, Mrs Puskas, the organizers of the match, and the president of Real Madrid. We made an agreement that if Real Madrid came to play in Budapest, a trust fund would be set up, so that as long as Pancho lives, he would have help with his medical facilities and fees, and logically, his wife Elizabeth would be given the minimum that she needed to get to the hospital, with such things as taxi fares paid. All Mrs Puskas wanted was to create a situation where Pancho would have no worries."
‘However, Mrs Puskas has not heard from Trendsport since the match was organized, not even so much as a phone call. She told Telegraph Sport that she did not want to burden Real Madrid with this problem. Was Serrano aware that the organizers had not been in touch with Mrs Puskas? "I did not know this," he admitted. "I thought the agreement had been completed, and my view is that we have to help in this matter and make sure that the promise that was made to the Puskas family at the meeting is honoured. We have to find the formula to solve this problem. I did not know of this situation. I thought it had all been organized."’