Sevilla and Betis Presidents Scuffle in the Directors’ Box

By: Bob | February 12th, 2007

It was a disagreement among the board of directors way back in 1909 that led Sevilla and Real Betis to part ways. Since then, the Sevilla Derby has grown into one of the fiercest in Spain with Sevilla winning 35 times, Real Betis 26 times and 16 draws between the two. This weekend saw another draw, a 0-0 affair that was exciting on the pitch and made even more interesting by a bust up between the club presidents in the directors’ box.

There wasn’t a lot of lost love between Sevilla president José María Del Nido and former Betis chief Manuel Ruiz de Lopera heading into the match and relations didn’t exactly improve during it.

The Guardian’s Sid Lowe tells the story.

It all started when Del Nido turned up at the Ruíz de Lopera stadium – a stadium he refuses to call the Ruíz de Lopera – and was shown to the palco. There, like every president who has been to the Ruíz de Lopera this season, he was presented with a statue in honour of Betis’s centenary. A statue he inevitably refused, thus sparking some real fun and games.

When he went to take his seat in the front row of the directors’ box as the game was starting, Del Nido was told that because he had rejected the offer, he had to sit somewhere else. Which would have been fine, reckoned Sevilla’s vice-president José Castro, “but when they showed us where we had to sit, we realised it was right by a bust of the Betis president” – and sitting there would obviously have been too much for Del Nido, who could have caught something or been seen in public alongside his worst enemy.

A scuffle then broke out during which Sevilla claimed that Del Nido was pushed by Lopera’s nephew Javier Páez. “It was a miracle he didn’t tumble down the stairs,” insisted Castro. “We were treated in classic Betis style,” insisted Del Nido. “The Sevilla president insulted Lopera’s nephew,” insisted Betis director Gregorio Conejo. The insult? “Christ, you’re as gay as your uncle!”

But if all that was bad enough, what made it worse was that argument was so public. And it wasn’t just public because of the television but because Betis took the decision to announce over the stadium PA that Sevilla had refused to accept the centenary statue.

Nothing quite beats the thrill of watching millionaires who have passed middle age squabbling like a bunch of teenage girls in gym class. The good news is that we may see a replay of the fun again on Thursday when the two teams square off again in the Copa Del Rey. The current Betis president has announced that his Sevilla counterpart will be banned from the match, a move that the Sevilla vice-president called “barbarity”.

If the action on the pitch is as exciting, it should be a game for the ages.