Frankfurt’s Martin Hinteregger apparently worked with a right-wing man known in Austria to organize a hobby football tournament. Hinteregger has now spoken out.
It was supposed to be a cozy little football festival for fans and friends: The Hinti Cup in Sirnitz, Austria, with live bands and a football tournament hosted by Eintracht defender Martin Hinteregger. “From June 16th to 19th, 2022 we will celebrate my 2 worlds, my 2 hearts in Sirnitz and we will all spend a casual and unprecedented weekend dedicated to football, the best music and international solidarity,” Hinteregger writes on the website the event.
The weekend in Hinteregger’s home country will probably not be particularly relaxed, but the Hinti Cup will bring Hinteregger the next trouble. Because how Research by the Austrian journalist Michael Bonvalot show, Hinteregger has an unsavory business partner when organizing the cup: Heinrich Sickl, also from Sirnitz, whom Bonvalot describes as a “very well-known face of the Austrian right-wing scene”.
Donations to the Identitarian Movement
Sickl is said to have had connections to the extreme right-wing milieu as early as his youth. According to research, the former Graz FPÖ municipal councilor has shown himself to be a supporter of the new right-wing Identitarian movement in recent years.
Sickl, as chairman of the “Freiheitliche Akademikerverband” (Free Association of Academics), is said to have organized events together with the right-wing extremist “Institut für Staatspolitik” of Götz Kubitschek, a central figure of the New Right.
Founder of “Hinti Event GmbH”
How much Hinteregger knows about Sickl’s attitude remains unclear. But they are always business partners. According to Bonvalot, Hinteregger, Sickl and a restaurateur founded “Hinti Event GmbH” as three equal partners, each bringing in 12,000 euros. Sickl was also listed as a press contact on the cup’s website until Thursday morning, but was then replaced.
Various concerts are also held at his family’s castle as part of the cup. The owner of the castle is Sickl’s mother Elisabeth, former federal minister of the right-wing populist FPÖ. Bonvalot also points out that Sirnitz has fewer than 300 residents. “It’s rather unlikely that Hinteregger doesn’t have at least an idea of who he’s working with,” says Bonvalot.
Hinteregger makes a statement
The Eintracht defender commented on Instagram on Thursday afternoon. “I have no knowledge of past or future activities on the part of the Sickl family, I just want to organize a football tournament and nothing more,” explained the 29-year-old. “Any business relationship with the Sickl family will be terminated with immediate effect based on the current state of knowledge, and the ‘Hinti-Cup’ event will be examined as an alternative in order to clarify a further course of action.” According to Hinteregger, he has friends all over the world through his time in professional football and also privately, and therefore clearly rejects “accusations that I am right-wing oriented”.
Eintracht Frankfurt announced that they would get an idea and then comment. There was no statement from Sickl when asked by hr-sport.
