The General Board of Betis: between the calm and the economic crisis

Betis celebrates this afternoon (San Pablo, 17:00) its General Meeting of Shareholders to try to evaluate its last season and adjust a budget for the present one. It will do so under an apparent climate of tranquility and calm compared to previous years and this is supported by the good moment that the Verdiblanco team is going through, placed in the upper zone of the league championship and involved in the fight to qualify for the next round of the Europa League. Perhaps it is the key factor to prevent the existing opposition from trying to lead changes in the leadership of the Betic entity. It happened last year, when at this point Manuel Pellegrini’s team could not find the path to good results and weight shareholders such as Joaquín Caro Ledesma and Lorenzo Serra Ferrer presented a movement aimed at changing the organization chart of the club. The prelude to this Board appears calmer for Ángel Haro and José Miguel López Catalán, president and vice president, aware of the sporting growth of this last year.

The current Council will rely on the fulfillment of sporting objectives as the best ally, but it will also have to face the need to expose numbers. There the panorama finds fewer justifications. Betis present a negative equity of more than 31 million euros despite the fact that there were hardly any signings in the last two summers. The accounts will also reflect a negative Working Capital that amounts to 122 million as of last June. All this conditioned, according to the club, to a pandemic that minimized earnings from ticket offices and tickets while the entire context of the value of players in the sale market changed.

A less busy Board is expected than in previous years and with the possibility that the club will present a new project regarding their intentions to invest in the stadium and the sports city. The figures will enter the fray to also look to the future, under the conditions of the return of the public and circumstances such as LaLiga’s agreement with the CVC investment fund. There will be agreements and disagreements between the shareholders present, but today’s Meeting is presented under an appearance of calm that did not exist in previous years.