Betis open the Liga against Girona (9.30pm, DAZN) and do so with an open wound in their planning. Striker Ayoze, recently proclaimed Euro champion with Spain, has left for Villarreal for four million euros. A figure that can be considered low for a champion with Spain and a regular at Betis, where he has played 59 games since his arrival in January 2023, scoring 15 goals. Villarreal has bet heavily on the player using a curious clause in the contract he had with the green and white entity. We have to go back to Ayoze’s renewal just a year ago with Betis. The Canary Islander arrived on loan from Leicester for the second half of the 2022-23 season. Ayoze was released and to achieve his renewal, Betis had no choice but to include a curious condition. If a club came with an offer higher than his salary at Betis and he did not match it, his departure from Betis would be set at four million euros. Villarreal knew about this clause, paid the four million to Betis two days before the start of LaLiga, and Ayoze is already wearing the colours of the team coached by Marcelino García Toral.
“The clause was a mandatory requirement because, if not, he wouldn’t have renewed. We could increase this clause from 4 to 10 million by matching the offer he received. Now, he has received a substantial offer that Betis cannot meet,” explained Ángel Haro, the president of the green and white team. The manager made an offer to the attacker that improved what he was earning at Betis, but it was not enough for the Canary Islander. His departure has gone down very badly with a fan base that idolised him and with a club that always believed in him.
Ayoze is smiling at Villarreal alongside new signings such as Papé and Sergi Cardona. Meanwhile, Betis are desperately looking for a striker to replace him. “He will be a very important player for us. He is 31 years old, but he has not suffered any injuries,” said Fernando Roig, the president of the Tenerife striker’s new team.
It has not been an easy summer for the Andalusian team. Manuel Pellegrini, who is facing his fifth season in charge, is the main guarantee of a team that will play in the Conference League, the third continental competition, and that has suffered important losses throughout the summer. In addition to Ayoze, two world champions with Argentina, Pezzella and Guido Rodríguez, and an Olympic champion in Juan Miranda, who won gold with the Spanish national team at the Paris Olympic Games, have left Betis. These are heavy losses for the Chilean coach, who will also be without Isco, who is still recovering from his fibula fracture at the end of last season and which caused him to miss the European Championship.
Betis also needed a capital increase of 43 million euros to be able to register its entire squad. On Tuesday, it only had 10 players registered for the league opener, but on Wednesday it completed the registration of all the first-team players, including the signings of Iker Losada, Diego Llorente, the veteran goalkeeper Adrián, from Liverpool, and the Swiss international Ricardo Rodríguez. Only Bakambu has been left out. The striker will not be able to face his former team due to injury and because bureaucratic problems prevent, for the moment, his registration in LaLiga. Betis’ objective, once again, is to fight for a European place. It has been playing in a continental competition for four consecutive seasons since Pellegrini’s arrival in the summer of 2020.
You can follow Morning Express Sports onFacebook andXor sign up here to receiveour weekly newsletter.
