Europa League-winning Eintracht Frankfurt defender Martin Hinteregger has announced his shock retirement from football just two weeks after cutting ties with a far-right businessman.
The 29-year-old centre-half had been criticised for setting up an amateur football tournament in his hometown with Heinrich Sickl, a councillor for right-wing populist party FPÖ who is a former member of banned German neo-Nazi organisation Nationalist Front.
“I condemn right-wing, intolerant and inhuman ideas in the strongest possible terms,” Hinteregger said in a statement announcing his retirement. “Those who know me know that. I need to get some distance and readjust my life.”
His initial response to the furore over the self-titled ‘Hinti Cup’ was to announce on Instagram that Sickl’s connection to the tournament had been terminated.
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Hinteregger has no current injury issues and his contract was not due to expire until 2024. But it was terminated two years early after discussions about his future with the club’s board and head coach Oliver Glasner.
“Last autumn I’d already started to think about retiring at the end of the season,” he said. “I was in a difficult period on the pitch: my performances were shaky.
“My improvement in the spring and our joint successes in the Europa League made me even more motivated to bow out with a great sporting success.
“That’s why I enjoyed the Europa League victory so much, because I already knew it would be my last big victory celebration with the fantastic fans in this city, which has become my second home.”
Frankfurt president Peter Fischer has made his position over far-right politics clear in recent years, stating that anybody affiliated with the right-wing Alternative fur Deutschland [AfD] party would be unwelcome at the club.
“Sport must be political, not only when it comes to sporting politics. The sport must raise its voice against aberrations in society,” he said in 2017.
“I will take a clear position on our general assembly that it is not in tune with our statues to vote for AfD. Nobody voting for this party, where there are racist and inhuman tendencies, can be our member.”
Board member Markus Krosche said that Hinteregger’s decision was a surprise but that the club understood it “from a human point of view”.
He said: “Martin will always be welcome in Frankfurt as a distinguished player and Europa League winner, not least because of his sincere apology for his behaviour in recent days and weeks, and his clear and believable distancing from right-wing ideology.
“We hope he finds his feet after ending his playing career and wish him all the best for the future.”
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