The name "Betis" is derived from
Baetis, the Roman name for the
Guadalquivir river which passes through Seville and which the Roman province there was named after.
Real ('Royal') was added in 1914 after the club received patronage from King
Alfonso XIII.
Foundation Betis' city rivals
Sevilla were the first club in Seville, founded in October 1905, while a second club,
España Balompié were established in September 1907. "
Balompié" translates literally as "football", as opposed to the most commonly adopted anglicised version, "
fútbol". Balompié was founded by students from the local Polytechnic Academy, and were in operation for one year before being officially recognised in 1909 as
Sevilla Balompié; despite this, 1907 remains the official foundation date of the club. Following an internal split from Sevilla FC, another club was formed, Betis Football Club. In 1914, they merged with Sevilla Balompié. The club received its royal patronage in the same year, and therefore adopted the name
Real Betis Balompié. Fans continued to refer to the club as
Balompié and were themselves known as
Los Balompedistas until the 1930s, when
Betis and the adjective
Béticos became common terminology when discussing the club and its followers. Real Betis originally played in all blue jerseys and white shorts, for no other reason than the easy availability of such plain colours. However, one of the club's founders and team captain, Manuel Ramos Asensio, was keen to take advantage of his relationships made while studying in Scotland, contacted
Celtic (whose green and white colours matched the Andalusian regional flag) and obtained the same fabric to make kits for his own club. Ramos had the lines re-orientated from horizontal 'hoops' into vertical stripes to make the shirts (no other Spanish club used the combination at the time). There is no mention of Celtic or Scotland in the history of Betis on the club's official website, but in 2017 the club officially acknowledged the link by producing a special hooped kit to coincide with
Andalusia Day. The blue colour is still often used in away kit designs.
1930s: promotion, championship and relegation During the
Spanish Second Republic (1931–1939), royal patronage of all organisations was nullified, and thus the club was known as
Betis Balompié until after the
Spanish Civil War when it would revert to the full name. The club reached the
Copa del Presidente de la República final for the first time on 21 June 1931, when it lost 3–1 to
Athletic Bilbao in Madrid. Betis marked their 25th anniversary year by winning their first
Segunda División title in
1932, finishing two points ahead of
Real Oviedo, thus becoming the first club from
Andalusia to play in
La Liga. On 28 April 1935, under the guidance of Irish coach
Patrick O'Connell, Betis won
La Liga, to date their only top division title. They topped the table by a single point over
Madrid FC. A year later Betis went down to
seventh. This was due to the dismantling of the championship-winning team because of the club's poor economic situation and the arrival of the Civil War, meaning that just 15 months after winning the league title only two players who won in 1935 were left: Peral and Saro. No official league was held during the Civil War between 1936 and 1939, until its resumption for the 1939–40 season and the first year back highlighted Betis' decline as exactly five years after winning the title the club was
relegated.
Darkest period Despite a brief
return to the top division which lasted only one season, the club continued to decline and in 1947 an all-time low was reached when the club were relegated to
Tercera División. Many fans see the ten years they spent in the category as key to the "identity" and "soul" of the club. During this time, Betis earned a reputation for filling its stadium and having massive support at away matches, known as the "Green March". When the side returned to the second level in 1954, it gained the distinction of being the only club in Spain to have won all three major divisions' titles. Much of the credit for guiding Betis through this dark period and back into the
Segunda lies with chairman Manuel Ruiz Rodríguez.
Benito Villamarín In 1955, Manuel Ruiz Rodríguez stepped down from running the club believing he could not offer further economic growth, he was replaced by Betis most famous former president, Benito Villamarín. During his reign Betis returned to the top division in
1958–59 and finished in third place in
1964. His purchase of the
Estadio Heliópolis in 1961 is seen as a key point in the history of the club – the grounds were named after him as
Estadio Benito Villamarín. In 1965, Villamarín stepped down from his position after ten years at the helm of the club. Just one year after Villamarín's departure, the club would again be relegated to division two, then rising and falling almost consecutively until consolidating their place in the top level in
1974–75.
First Copa del Rey Title and European Qualification On 25 June 1977, Betis played Athletic Bilbao at the
Vicente Calderón Stadium in the
Copa del Rey final. The match finished 2–2, with Betis winning 8–7 after a staggering 21
penalties taken to win its first ever Copa del Rey title. This rounded off a solid season in which the club
finished fifth in the league. After that triumph, Betis
competed in the
European Cup Winners' Cup: after knocking out
Milan 3–2 on aggregate in the first round, the side reached the quarter-finals, where they lost to
Dynamo Moscow. Despite their strong performance in
Europe, the team
suffered league relegation. The following year, Betis returned to the top flight and ushered in a period of "good times" for the club, with the next three seasons seeing three top-six finishes, as well as
UEFA Cup qualification in
1982 and
1984. During the summer of 1982, the Benito Villamarín hosted two matches as part of the
1982 FIFA World Cup, and also witnessed the
Spain national team's famous
12–1 hammering of
Malta to
qualify for
UEFA Euro 1984.
Economic crisis and Manuel Ruiz de Lopera In 1992, Betis found itself subject to new league rules and regulations due to its restructuring as an autonomous sporting group (SAD), requiring the club to come up with 1,200 million
pesetas, roughly double that of all the first and second division teams, despite being in level two at the time. In just three months, the fans raised 400 million pesetas with then vice-president
Manuel Ruiz de Lopera stepping in to provide an economic guarantee while himself becoming majority shareholder as the team narrowly avoided relegation. On 11 September 1994, Real Betis played its 1,000th game in La Liga.
Serra Ferrer success After another three seasons in the second division, with the club managed by
Lorenzo Serra Ferrer, Betis
returned to the top flight for the
1994–95 season, subsequently achieving a final third position, thus
qualifying to the UEFA Cup.In the European campaign, Betis knocked out
Fenerbahçe (4–1 on aggregate) and
1. FC Kaiserslautern (4–1) before losing to
defeated finalists Bordeaux (3–2). In 1997, 20 years after winning the trophy for the first time, the club returned to the final of the Copa del Rey – again held in Madrid, although this time at the
Santiago Bernabéu Stadium –
losing 2–3 against
Barcelona after
extra time. Incidentally,
Barça was the club Serra Ferrer would leave Betis for that summer, to be replaced by former player
Luis Aragonés. Aragonés would only last
one season with the club, leading the side to the eighth position and to
the quarter-finals in the Cup Winners' Cup, where they would lose 2–5 on aggregate to eventual winners
Chelsea. Aragonés was followed by the controversial reign of
Javier Clemente, who spat on a fan and implied Andalusia was "another country!". The team slipped down the table,
finishing 11th and
being knocked out of the UEFA Cup by
Bologna in the third round. For the next couple of seasons, Betis went through numerous managers, a relegation and a promotion, after which the team
finished sixth in the league with
Juande Ramos at the helm. Ramos was gone after just one season, however, being replaced by former Cup Winners' Cup-winning manager
Víctor Fernández. He led the team to
eighth and
ninth in the league and the
third round of the 2002–03 UEFA Cup, being knocked out by
Auxerre (1–2 on aggregate), during his two-year reign. For 2004, Fernández was replaced by the returning Serra Ferrer, who guided the team to the
fourth position in the top flight. They also returned to the Vicente Calderón on 11 June 2005 for the
Copa del Rey final, lifting the trophy for only the second time after an extra-time winner by youth graduate
Dani in a
2–1 win against
Osasuna. The league finish meant Betis became the first Andalusian team to compete in the
UEFA Champions League, and it reached
the group stage after disposing of
Monaco in the last qualifying round (3–2 on aggregate). Drawn in Group G, and in spite of a 1–0 home win against Chelsea, the club eventually finished third, being "demoted" to the
UEFA Cup, where it would be ousted in the
round of 16 by Romanian club
Steaua București with a 0–3 home loss. Compared to the previous season, the
league campaign was disappointing, with the club finishing in 14th place, just three points off the relegation zone.
Centenary celebrations , Betis player and president Betis celebrated their
centenary year in 2007. The festivities included a special match against Milan, the
reigning European Champions, on August 9, with the hosts winning 1–0 thanks to a
Mark González penalty early in the second half. Seven days later, the club won the
Ramón de Carranza Trophy held in neighbouring
Cádiz, beating
Real Zaragoza on penalties in the final, having defeated Real Madrid in the semi-finals. Surrounding the celebration, it was a time of great change in terms of the playing and technical teams, with eight new signings replacing 14 departures. In the summer of 2006, Serra Ferrer was replaced by
Luis Fernandez for the
2006–07 season. However, the two seasons that encompassed the centenary year (2006–07 and
2007–08) were disappointing, with the club having four different managers and barely avoiding relegation in both seasons.
Relegation After many years of staving off relegation, Betis'
2008–09 season culminated with a 1–1 draw against
Real Valladolid at home. As a result, the club finished 18th in the table and consequently was relegated to the second division on goal difference. On 15 June 2009 over 65,000
Beticos, including icons such as
Rafael Gordillo, Del Sol,
Hipólito Rincón,
Julio Cardeñosa and others, joined the protest march in Sevilla with the slogan "
15-J Yo Voy Betis" to let the majority owner Ruiz de Lopera know that it was time to put his 54% share of the club on the market for someone, some entity or the Betis supporters to buy those shares and remove Lopera from the day-to-day operations of the club. Despite the protests, no upper management changes were made during
the season, which would ultimately see Betis fail to gain promotion back to the top level.
Lopera court action and sale Seville judge Mercedes Alaya was investigating links between Betis and other Ruiz de Lopera-owned businesses, leading to him being formally charged with fraud. On 7 July 2010, one week before the start of preliminary court proceedings, Lopera sold 94% of the shares that he owned (51% of Betis total shares) to Bitton Sport, fronted by Luis Oliver, for the surprisingly low figure of €16 million, leaving Lopera with only minor shares; Oliver had already reportedly taken two football clubs,
Cartagena and
Xerez, to the brink of bankruptcy. Before the sale could be officially sanctioned, however, Ayala froze Lopera shareholdings. Left with nothing, despite putting down a €1 million deposit, Oliver hastily bought a nominal number of shares from a third party and was voted onto the board of directors by the existing members (all former cohorts of Lopera), allowing him to carry on running the club. In response to this, the judge appointed well-respected former Betis, Real Madrid and Spain national team legend
Rafael Gordillo to administer Lopera's shares to ensure Lopera was not still running the club and that decisions made were for the benefit of the club not individual board members.
La Liga return vs. Betis before an away Europa League fixture in Saint Petersburg in February 2022 Again under
Pepe Mel, Betis started
2011–12 with four wins in as many games, with
Rubén Castro retaining his goal scoring form from
the previous season, where he scored 27 goals. Betis finished 13th in their first season since returning to La Liga. In the
2012–13 season, Betis finished seventh in La Liga and qualified for the
2013–14 UEFA Europa League, the first European qualification for the club since the
2005–06 Champions League. This European campaign ended in the quarter-finals after losing on penalties to local rivals Sevilla. Betis were relegated from La Liga with three games still to play in the
2013–14 season, but
returned immediately as champions with two games to spare.
Back into UEFA competitions In the
2017–18 season, under
Quique Setién, Betis finished sixth in La Liga and earned a spot in the Europa League. The 2018–19 campaign was very positive; the club reached the
Copa del Rey semi-finals and topped their group in the Europa League, before eventually being knocked out by
Stade Rennais in the
round of 32. On 9 July 2020,
Manuel Pellegrini was appointed as Betis manager ahead of the 2020–21 season. He guided them to a sixth-place finish and a Europa League spot, an improvement from 15th the previous season. Betis won the
Copa del Rey final against
Valencia after drawing 1–1 after 120 minutes and winning 5–4 on penalties. It was the first trophy for 17 years, since the
2005 edition. The club displayed consistency under Pellegrini's management by qualifying for the
UEFA Europa League for three consecutive seasons, finishing fifth and sixth in the
2021–22 and
2022–23 seasons, respectively. The club qualified for the
Conference League after a seventh-place finish in
2023–24 season and reached the club's first ever European final the
following season. However, they
lost to
Chelsea 1–4. ==Seville derby==