Former Hungarian Swimming President Gyarfas Arrested Over 1998 Murder

Tamas Gyarfasformer president of the Hungarian Swimming Association and current member of the FINA Executive, has been arrested on suspicion of ordering the murder of a media rival in 1998.

Reuters and other media outlets report that Hungarian police detained Gyarfas this week, suspecting him of involvement in the murder of Janos Fenyo, a media tycoon killed in the late 1990s. Fenyo owned a number of newspapers, magazine and a TV network when he was killed by a flurry of submachine gun bullets while in his car at a traffic light in Budapest on Feb. 11, 1998, per Reuters and The Washington Post. Gyarfas was also involved in media ownership at the time.

Hungarian police say they reopened the case of Fenyo’s murder last October.

Gyarfas was the head of Hungary’s swimming federation from 1993 until 2016, when he resigned after criticism from some of the nation’s top swimmers. In 2017, though, he was appointed by FINA President Julio Maglione to serve on the 8-person FINA Executive, a committee made up of the international swimming federation’s president, five vice presidents, honorary treasurer and one member to be nominated by the president.

LEN, for whom Gyarfas serves as treasurer, released this statement on the matter:

“In the wake of the media reports on the developing case related to LEN Treasurer Tamas Gyarfas, LEN keeps monitoring the situation and waits for any development in the investigation.”

FINA has not publicly commented.

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Facts
6 years ago

Wonder how long it will take ISHOF to take him off the list? https://ishof.org/tam%C3%A1s-gy%C3%A1rf%C3%A1s.html

Brutus
6 years ago

Hungarian prison…sounds like fun..NOT!!!

Sir Swimsalot
6 years ago

Gee whiz.

Dave
6 years ago

This is an absolutely insane story. FINA needs to be totally revamped.

STRAIGHTBLACKLINE
6 years ago

How does someone who is thrown out by his own federation get to sit on the FINA Executive? It shows once again just how corrupt and undemocratic the body that runs our sport is.

Sum Ting Wong
6 years ago

That’s impressive . Not that I haven’t read many many comments hoping for a few media barons to be done in over the last 2 decades but someone has gone & done it via machine guns at that !

Snarky
6 years ago

FINA is so corrupt. Julio and cornel have millions squirreled away from their corruption.

tammy touchpad error
6 years ago

Nice to see swimming getting some solid media attention from outside the lane ropes. #GoIronLadyGo

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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