Hungarian football legend Ferenc Puskás is being posthumously honoured with the World Sports Legends Award for life-time achievement.
Ferenc Puskás (1927-2006), also called the Galloping Major, scored 83 goals in 84 games with the Hungarian national team (the “Golden Team“) and was a member of three European Cup-winning teams (1959, 1960, 1966) with Spanish club Real Madrid. He became Olympic champion in 1952 and led his nation to the final of the 1954 World Cup where he was named the tournament’s best player. In 2006, he was buried under the dome of the St Stephen’s Basilica in Budapest as millions of Hungarians went to the streets to mourn him.
According to a statement by the Puskás Academy, a member of the late footballer’s family together with Pál Schmitt, Hungary’s former president and former head of the Hungarian Olympic Committee, will take over the award at a gala dinner held in Monaco next Saturday.
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WSL awardees include Mika Hakkinen, Jean-Marie Pfaff, Jutta Kleinschmidt, Osvaldo Ardiles, and Giacomo Agostini. The latest posthumous award went to Ayrton Senna.
In the featured photo: the young Ferenc Puskás. Photo via Fortepan/József Szabó