Manuel Ruiz de Lopera, former president of Betis, dies

 

In the 90s and early years of this century, the Betic president starred in some of the funniest moments in Spanish football due to his characteristic way of being.

Manuel Ruiz Lopera, previous leader of Betis, passes on at 79 years old this Sunday at his home in Seville subsequent to leaving the emergency unit the St Nick Isabel center in Seville, as per data given by the club on its X informal organization.

The one who was the biggest investor of Betis for right around twenty years and president somewhere in the range of 1996 and 2006, was hospitalized months prior for stomach related issues got from digestive diverticulitis.

Manuel Ruiz Lopera y Avalos, born in Seville on August 13, 1944, was a businessman in the financial and construction sector, and his relationship as a manager with Betis began in 1989 at the hands of president Hugo Galera, who in December 1991 he appointed him vice president of economic affairs.

During his tenure, Lopera achieved two promotions for the club, several European qualifications, the 2005 Copa del Rey title and qualification for the Champions League.

In 1992 he bought 70 percent of the shares and became CEO. With his management in 1994 he managed to promote the club to first class and from 1996 to 2006 he was its president.

After a few changes with Equity, in 2018, the Seville Court cleared him of the proceeded with wrongdoings of misappropriation and uncalled for organization (1993-2006), with a quittance sentence that was proclaimed last following a half year.

After several vicissitudes with Justice, in 2018, the Seville Court acquitted him of the continued crimes of misappropriation and unfair administration (1993-2006), with an acquittal sentence that was declared final after six months.

In recent years, suffering from some health problems, he has lived away from the media.

An indefinable seal

The former president of Betis Manuel Ruiz de Lopera has been an indefinable character who gave the imprint of his personality to the Heliopolis club for almost a quarter of a century of some sporting lights, many shadows in management and an omnipresence for good and bad. , present or absent, near or far, active or passive, and always in the focus of followers and detractors.

Lopera is in its own right one of the faces of a football of another time, marked by 'ostentious' presidencies, in the creative terminology of Jesus Gil when fusing ostentatious and stentorian, and of which characters such as Damián Caneda, Joan Gaspart and, In a more picturesque key, José María Ruiz Mateos and his wife, María Teresa Rivero.

Faithful to the rocky and risky style of a self-made businessman from the very bottom, Manuel Ruiz de Lopera has been fighting until the end for what he considered to be his actions despite reaching an agreement in 2017 with shareholder associations to put an end to to a long judicial process that he did not, despite this, end.

This agreement made this peculiar businessman from the Sevillian neighborhood of Fontanal abandon the preferential place he had since he took charge of the Betic club in 1992 until in 2010 when judge Mercedes Alaya seized the shares of his company Farusa, one of the many of those emblazoned as Incecosa or Tegasa.

A lawyer says that when he asked him why 'Técnicas Ganaderas SA' (TEGASA) was, he replied that it was nothing about livestock, but about "making money, kid, making a lot of money", that Loperian imprint that has accompanied him until the end. of his days, when he still had supporters who stopped him on the street despite the dark certainties of his management that, logically, they ignored, because of the sporting lights that there were also.