Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Real Betis : A New Life...

For many Betis fans, this could be the moment that they have been waiting for all these years. News broke last night that the sale of the club by President Manuel Lopera looks like it will go ahead finally after months of uncertainty. It was reported that a deal has been struck between the embittered Lopera to sell the club over to Francisco Sanchez who is the current owner of Linesur - a transportation/bus company.

While unconfirmed, it seems like the BSport group (a holding company formed by Sanchez for the takeover) has already paid an installment of 10 million Euros upfront with a view to complete the takeover of the club by 4 October 2008. Details remain sketchy at this point but it is safe to say that the scandal-ridden Lopera has finally been left with no choice but to bail out.
Betis fans would be happy that this situation finally looks like it is going to be resolved and personally I am glad that the sins of one man has not caused the downfall of a club like the situation that plagued a lot of other clubs (remember Leeds United and SS Lazio).
However I must say that as a fan, unless there is a way for us to get involved and have a say in the actual running of the club, then it is quite difficult to get too emotionally involved in such issues. It is for this reason that I turned away from the English game - there were just too many problems and controversies going on that had nothing to do with the game of football.
I love the idea of communal activism and grassroot movements where fans take an active stand in doing something for the club that they love. For e.g. in England, there was a man named Will Brooks who who set up www.myfootballclub.co.uk a website asking for 50,000 donations of £35 in return for a share of whichever club the new friendly society is able to buy. More recently, it was the Marseille fans who tried to raise funds for the club to buy back terrace hero Didier Drogba.

However the cynic in me says that while these are noble efforts, none of them have succeeded in doing anything tangible. At the end of the day, we fans are still at the mercy of those who hold the cash. And if we think about it, isn’t life the same as well?
Revolution? Sadly, I don’t think so…

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