A businessman was hoping to sell coloured plastic armbands with the words 'Puskás öcse' near Puskás Stadium on the night of the Real Madrid match - but he was thwarted when the Hungarian Football League (MLL) rejected his request. The trader's idea was clearly the final straw. For weeks now, there have been bad-tempered arguments over the use of Ferenc Puskás's name. Puskás, who is now 78 and suffering from an Alzheimer-like disease, was the captain of the 'Golden Team' that won the football World Cup for Hungary in 1953.

The match, organised by Trendsport Kft and Sándor Demján's TriGranit Rt., will pit the Spanish team against a specially assembled Hungarian line-up, christened the 'Ferenc Puskás team'. The choice is not a coincidence: the Spanish have made no secret of the fact that they would not be coming anywhere near Budapest were the match not being held in honour of Puskás, their one-time team-mate.

The argument revolves around the question of what Puskás and his family - who are involved in a billing dispute with the hospital treating the football star - will get for marketing this unique Hungarian brand name. For the time being, the family continues to trust the organisers' sometimes contradictory promises, but on paper, the organisers have only committed themselves to paying up HUF1m and to paying for any of the star's "justifiable" medical expenses not otherwise covered by his state medical insurance.

TrendSport's owner László Erdős and Puskás's wife signed an agreement on June 27. The 73-year-old was worried: an acquaintance had just told her that the hospital treating her husband was going to bill her for several million forints, although nobody close to the family was prepared to tell HVG who this acquaintance was. People in the football world say that the proceeds of a 2003 fundraising campaign to pay for Puskás's treatment and provide him with a 'luxury room' in the hospital were diverted to fund improvements to the rest of Puskás's hospital ward. Once his luxury accommodation was completed, however, the hospital billed the family at hotel rates.