Global Fútbol

Real Betis continue to look abroad as part of their international expansion plan, and Los Verdiblancos have organised numerous initiatives outside of Spain to position the club in strategic markets. As part of the ‘Betis Week’ project, through which they carry out activations in other countries throughout the season, the club inaugurated its latest ‘Real Betis Academy’, this time in the town of Chicureo, in the vicinity of Santiago.

The Chilean site will train young footballers from the ages of five to 18 and will do so using the Real Betis methodology and Chilean coaches, who have been trained up by the club’s youth development experts. The best players from the academy will have the opportunity to travel to Seville and enjoy ‘Real Betis Inside’, meaning they’ll be able to live and experience the Spanish academy by training alongside other youth teams squads and by playing at the club’s facilities.

The ‘Real Betis Academy’ on the outskirts of the Chilean capital is one of many international sporting projects the club has worked on. Having opened similar sites in the United States, Mexico, Egypt, Algeria, Zimbabwe, El Salvador, Venezuela and Georgia, adding up to a total of 32 academies around the world, the club is showcasing Real Betis’ high-level training methodology to the more than 3,000 youngsters who form part of this worldwide youth football programme.  

The opening of the ‘Real Betis Academy’ was just one of many activations that took place during this ‘Betis Week’, as they also carried out various activities across this country that is strategic due to its current position and historical links with the club. The connection is even stronger nowadays given that coach Manuel Pellegrini and goalkeeper Claudio Bravo are both Chileans. As for the other activations, one was a meeting with the National Association of Professional Football of Chile (ANFP), which includes the professional clubs of the Chilean country, where the Spanish institution presented their sporting and business management model. There was also a watch party, at which the team’s LALIGA EA SPORTS match against Villarreal CF was broadcast.

The club also intends to announce other sporting, commercial and social actions. It should be noted that the ‘Betis Week’ in Chile is the third edition of this season, after similar week-long programmes in Morocco and Mexico, which are other strategic countries for Los Verdiblancos.

The Chilean and Latin American markets are key ones for Real Betis, a club which already has permanent branches of the ‘Real Betis Academy’ in Mexico City, Querétaro and Caracas, while several camps were held last summer in Florida and will be repeated this summer. Borja Tobar, who is in charge of International Expansion at Real Betis, explained: “To begin, we have done this because of the growing interest of Chilean fans in our club. We see it regularly with our press conferences, with the Chilean media’s interest in the club and with the origin of many of our followers on social media. Having Manuel Pellegrini and Claudio Bravo has triggered this interest, and we are aware that Chile is a place of tremendous passion for football and a place where there is a lot of talent. The ingredients came together perfectly to open an academy. We want to use football to reach the Chilean people. We want to help develop talent with a sporting methodology that is bearing fruit. And, of course, we want to make the Real Betis brand even bigger in a country where we already feel a lot of affection.”

Tobar also spoke about how, for Real Betis, it is really important to strike up agreements outside of Spain, and even more so in a strategic market like Chile. He said: “It is a strategic country because of Manuel Pellegrini or Claudio Bravo right now, but also because of former Chilean international players who have worn our shirt, like Pato Yáñez or Mark González. We are united by football and also by the way we experience it. We’ve looked to tell all these stories in this country via ‘Real Betis Week’, when we carried out a variety of activations in Chile to make our brand a little better known. We inaugurated our academy, we held meetings with the media, with Claudio Bravo joining from Seville, we had a watch party with Real Betis fans and local fans, and we had actions with professional clubs and the ANFP itself. We set up a lot of initiatives to strengthen all these connections.”

In conclusion, the director offered more thoughts on the inauguration of the ‘Real Betis Academy’ in Chile. He stated: “It is important because football is the best way to reach a country and project your values, your methodology and, at the end of the day, your brand.  We are very closely involved with all our academies, holding sessions with local coaches, and all of this is very effective. They know that we are a club with great tradition and competing in LALIGA, one of the best competitions in the world. That is a guarantee for growth in a country. Through these academies, we also create new Real Betis fans all around the world and we regularly organise events for them, to involve these local communities and help them feel the passion for Real Betis.”