“I know that he was an FPÖ politician, which isn’t a bad thing in Austria. But I didn’t know anything about the identitarian movement or what that meant,” said the Austrian football international to “Standard” (Monday -Output). Hinteregger said he was not interested enough in politics.
Hinteregger found himself in need of explanation after his business relationship with Sickl was discussed in the media. The Styrian local politician, who comes from Sirnitz (Carinthia), like the soccer professional, is assigned to the extreme right. Until last year, Sickl sat on the Graz municipal council for the FPÖ. Among other things, he rented premises to the Identitarian Movement, which the Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified as right-wing extremist, and is said to have supported it as a security service.
“AfD is ten times worse”
“The German press can be very tough there. It wasn’t tragic in Austria anyway. In Germany, many put the FPÖ and AfD on the same level, but the AfD is ten times worse,” said Hinteregger about the media coverage. Sickl (“He left Sirnitz 30 years ago, I wasn’t even born then”) only returned to Sirnitz a few months ago and then contacted him. It was about organizing a music festival in addition to the Hinti Cup. This ended up being cancelled.
In “Standard”, Hinteregger once again expressly distanced himself from any right-wing ideas. “If I had thought just a little differently, I would never have been able to build this status and this life in Frankfurt,” he said, referring to the Eintracht Frankfurt fan scene. He got to know Sickl as a “positive, nice person”. “If you got to know him, you would say the same thing. Of course, after knowing the story, the perception and perspective is different.”
Source: Nachrichten
