Frankfurt/Main (AP) – Soccer professional Martin Hinteregger from Eintracht Frankfurt has broken off a business relationship with a former FPÖ municipal council and has distanced himself from right-wing ideas.
“I have friends all over the world through my time in professional football and also privately, and I clearly reject accusations that I am right-wing and continue to fight against any kind of discrimination!” Hinteregger wrote on social networks.
The 29-year-old Bundesliga defender was reacting to a report by journalist Michael Bonvalot. Hinteregger’s business relationship with the Austrian local politician Heinrich Sickl from the right-wing FPÖ was discussed in his blog “Standpunkt”. Sickl made headlines in 2018 because he had rented premises in Graz to the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement.
“It’s unbelievable that a stranger can claim such things about me,” Hinteregger said in a statement. He has no knowledge “of past or future activities” on the part of the Sickl family and only wants to hold a football tournament and nothing more.
“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,” continued the Austrian international.
Eintracht Frankfurt announced that so far there has only been contact with Hinteregger’s advisor. The Europa League winner therefore referred to his professional’s statement. No one had any knowledge of the content and form of the business relationships in connection with the so-called Hinti Cup. “The business and legal proximity to a representative of the right-wing political spectrum in Austria that has now come to light requires clear distancing,” wrote the Bundesliga club.