Last week, OSC, the leader of the Hungarian League, lost its main sponsor – the bridge construction company A-Hid Zrt. A few days ago, A-Hid Zrt. announced officially that its sponsorship contract with OSC Budapest had expired.
But, the company will continue to support water polo. A-Hid Zrt. will be the sponsor of the male senior team of Vasas from the next season, the club announced today.
Vasas, that is based in Budapest, as well as OSC, is currently in the 11th place of the Hungarian League.
Vasas’s new head coach will be Lajos Vad, who has been OSC’s head coach so far. He signed a two-year contract. Vad’s assistant will be Mate Bobis, while Csaba Matefalvy will be the goalkeepers’ coach. Bobis and Matefalvy have already been Vasas’s coaches.
The club said that the team for the new season would be presented in a few weeks, but Vasas plans to bring several players of the Hungarian national team.
-The joining of the A-Hid has created a new situation, and we have more opportunities for next season than we originally planned. Our new partner will negotiate with the players who have been in OSC so far, and we will finalize the negotiations started by our department- Laszlo Markovits, Vasas’s president said. He also said that the sponsorship contract had been a great pleasure and progress for the club, as Vasas had been working for many years to bring key sponsors.
Vasas is the two-time European champion (1979/80 and 1984/85). It has won 18 titles in the Hungarian League, but the club has had more downs than ups in the last few seasons. Since 2012 it hasn’t won a trophy. Last season, Vasas finished the league in 15th place and kept a spot in the First Division by beating Kanisza in the relegation playoffs.
– If we look only at the 18 years of my presidency so far, every major club in water polo has had better and worse periods, depending on what kind of support they have been able to win for themselves. There is a continuous cycle with different possibilities. After our series of league titles, we also experienced downs when we lost our sponsors. During this period, only Gyula Toth and Plaket (the club’s title sponsor in the past few seasons – Ed) remained a certain point in the life of Vasas – Markovits said and added that by joining A-Zid, the club could achieve results which are worthy of Vasas’s tradition.
Apathy Endre, the owner of A-Hid Zrt, said that for the club’s website:
– An essential role in our decision was to join a long-established club. I know Laszlo Markovits well from the world of sports. I hope that the current announcement also makes it clear to everyone that our group of companies is still committed to supporting Hungarian water polo, and we will continue our sponsorship activities in the sport, which we started in the early 2000s. With our new joint project, everything can become possible for Vasas to return to the Hungarian top again after many years.
