Sándor Szűcs

Sándor Szűcs (23 November 1921 – 4 June 1951) was a Hungarian football player. He was a defender for Szolnoki MÁV and Újpest FC, with whom he was a three-time league champion in the Nemzeti Bajnokság I. He had 19 appearances for Hungary from 1941 to 1948. In 1951, he was executed for an attempted defection to Austria.

Biography Szűcs was born in Szolnok in 1921. He began his career with his local club, Szolnoki MÁV, at the age of 17. In 1944, he moved to Újpest FC where he played alongside Ferenc Szusza and Gyula Zsengellér.

In 1940, he made his first appearance for the Hungarian national youth team. In March 1941, he was called up to the Hungary national football team for a match against Yugoslavia.

In 1949, fellow Hungarian player László Kubala defected to the west and formed a team called Hungaria made up of Eastern European émigrés, including Hungarians. The team played friendlies against major western clubs, which paid them well. Efforts to recruit eastern bloc players by those that had already escaped resulted in the authorities in those countries stepping up their watch on their players.

The couple found someone who would help them reach the west in exchange for a half pound of gold plus US$5,000, if successful. He and Kovács were held for months before their trial. Szűcs was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. His former teammates Ferenc Puskás and József Bozsik attempted to intervene on his behalf without success. On 4 June 1951, Szűcs was executed.

Aftermath The trial was held in secret and, officially, nobody knew about the execution until the political changes in the country in 1989. Additionally, the location of his grave was strictly confidential. After the communist regime's fall, Szűcs' story was widely published. In 1989 the death sentence was revoked and declared a violation of the law. In 1991, he was posthumously named a police lieutenant-colonel. Since 1993, an elementary school was named after him in Újpest, while a football tournament for youth players of the district is held every year. The stand of Újpest FC's Ferenc Szusza Stadium where home team supporters sit has been named after him. A documentary movie was filmed of his story in 2005.