He is a cult figure, was captain and is a favorite of Eintracht Frankfurt fans: Martin Hinteregger is not just an ordinary defender at a football club, but represents the values of this club and its tens of thousands of supporters like no other.
But now the Hinteregger memorial is beginning to falter: late on Wednesday, the freelance journalist and author Michael Bonvalot published an article about Martin Hinteregger and his business partner Heinrich Sickl, who is associated with the extreme right in Austria.
Alexander Juergs
Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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Daniel Schleidt
Coordinator of the economics department in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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The author reports on the "Hinti-Cup", a football tournament for recreational footballers in the little village of Sirnitz in Upper Carinthia, which is organized by Hinti Event GmbH.
Bonvalot writes there that Sickl and Hinteregger founded Hinti Event GmbH together with a restaurateur, which organizes the hobby tournament in the 300-inhabitant village of Sirnitz.
And he doubts that the Frankfurt soccer player could not have known who he was getting involved with in this collaboration.
Background: The journalist Michael Bonvalot is considered an expert on the right-wing scene in Austria.
On his blog "Stand.punkt" he published his research on Hinteregger's connections to the former Graz FPÖ councilor Heinrich Sickl.
Hinteregger defends himself on Instagram
A heated debate has arisen among Eintracht supporters since the release as to how the player and club should deal with the Causa Hinti-Cup.
In the past, Eintracht Frankfurt, especially in the person of its President Peter Fischer, had repeatedly clearly distanced itself from right-wing groups and parties.
Fischer is considered a courageous pioneer against right-wing tendencies and said in an interview with the FAZ in 2017: "Anyone who votes for the AfD cannot be a member of us." Fischer was also one of the speakers at commemorative events for the victims of the racist attack in Hanau which killed nine innocents.
And the active fan scene in Frankfurt has also been attributed to the left spectrum for years.
Hinteregger commented on his Instagram channel at noon.
There he agrees to sever any business relationship with the Sickl family "with immediate effect" and to "review" the Hinti Cup.
He had no knowledge of past or future activities of the Sickl family, "I just want to hold a football tournament and nothing more," writes the Austrian there.
But many fans doubt that he has done himself a favor with this statement, and for many observers the distancing does not go far enough.
According to Bonvalot, Heinrich Sickl is said to have been associated with the right-wing extremist scene when he was young.
At the age of seventeen he is said to have been a member of the banned German neo-Nazi organization "Nationalist Front".
According to the journalist, Sickl recently supported the Identitarian movement, for example as a security service at demonstrations.
He also donated money to the right-wing extremist group and rented rooms to them.
Bonvalot also writes on his blog that Sickl organized events with the publisher Götz Kubitschek.
Kubitschek set up a think tank, the Institute for State Politics, in Schnellroda, Saxony-Anhalt, and is considered a key figure in the so-called New Right.
The publisher is said to have great influence on the supporters of the now defunct right-wing “wing” of the AfD.
Among others, Martin Sellner, the leading head of the Austrian Identitarians, publishes in Kubitschek's publishing house Antaios.
The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony-Anhalt has classified Kubitschek's Institute for State Politics as "proven right-wing extremist endeavors" since 2019.