In 2023, Héctor BellerÃn signed a five-year deal at Real Betis, a club that aligns with the player's commitments to social and environmental initiatives. (Photo by Fran Santiago/Getty Images)Most mornings Real Betis defender Héctor BellerÃn leaves his home in the centre of Seville and cycles through the city's streets until he reaches Avenida Italia, rolling into training on his bike. Born in Barcelona, he moved to London at 18 -- you can hear it in his accent when he talks -- and lived in Lisbon, his career taking him from the Catalan giants to Arsenal and Sporting, but he always wanted to be here.
Inspired by his family, Betis was something he had to try at least once. Once he had, winning a Copa del Rey while on loan in 2022, he wanted to do it again. And so now he's back. Better still, he has found his place.
"My personal Betis story started years ago with my grandma," BellerÃn says. "She was a massive Betis fan -- even more than my dad. Every Christmas I would get Betis presents or things that were green and white. Even if they didn't have a badge, she would convince me they were Betis presents. I had a big attachment to Betis through my relationship with my dad too and always dreamed that at least one time in my life I would play for this club. The opportunity came sooner than expected. Since the moment I arrived [on loan, in 2021-22] I knew I wanted this to be my home, so I'm happy to be on a long-term contract now. My dad went to Barcelona in search of love -- my mum lived there -- and I got back to where he is from so it is a beautiful story."
The connection has been greater and deeper than BellerÃn imagined, and it goes beyond the game itself.
"Every year that passes I enjoy it more when there's an energy and a connection between all the players," he says. "It's a space that's quite personal. How do you feel? How do you think you did? I am someone who finds that energy around me contagious. It's the synergy."
It's also there in the club's colours. "We're trying to be the greenest team in the world," insists the club's CEO Ramon Alarcon. "We're concerned about green washing, we want this to be genuine: we want to be a sustainable club."
And so Betis have committed to carbon compensation, put together new stadium and training ground projects guided by green ideals and pushed for recycling drives and shifts in transportation and match-going habits. Forever Green, they call it.
A football team, says Rafa Muela, the president of the club's foundation, can be "a platform to try to show the world, to facilitate change; a message of responsibility." And in BellerÃn, they have found a partner: a shareholder at Forest Green Rovers who after the pandemic pledged to plant 3,000 trees for every goal that Arsenal scored.
"It's important for me personally to be part of a club that has a commitment, not just with sustainability but also with football fans, their community," BellerÃn says. "For me, sustainability has always been a big thing. Forest Green Rovers have been doing that for a long time, and when you're then talking about a club that plays European competition and has 60,000 people coming to the stadium every weekend, the impact is even bigger. Betis is an example and I am proud of the club, how it influences and promotes this kind of behaviour through its foundation."
"Rafa and I have talked about these issues a lot," BellerÃn says. "We are always in contact and willing to make whatever change we can. Betis have all sorts of projects, they ask opinions, ideas. They collaborate with Forest Green. And when I was here on loan I did some work with a foundation called Futbol Mas, which works with Betis. My girlfriend used to work there; we used to go to some of the poorest areas in suburban Sevilla, like Pino Montano and Torreblanca.
"One project that is still going and is beautiful is an example of what we're talking about. They would take kids after school and give them a couple of hours of football. But it was not just playing football; it was talking about relationships, emotions, feelings. Football was the connector between everyone, making those conversations easier to understand."
So, with football as the connector, here's a conversation with BellerÃn on players' social responsibilities, green lifestyle, mental health and more.
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ESPN: What do you do on a personal level to promote sustainability?
Héctor BellerÃn: Sustainability is something that I take into account for every single decision I make in my life. I use my bike for everything. I use public transport as much as I can. I recycle, which is easy but a lot of people don't do it.
When it comes to consuming, I always take my time. We are used to buying things in the moment, from impulse, but I take months before I make a purchase. That shows [me] if I really want something, if I really need something. I always look into it before I buy something to make sure I don't have to buy another one in the future.
I take my time: what's the best decision in terms of sustainability, for the planet, and as a consumer as well? There are many things we buy that we only use once. One of the greener things you can do is vote because that means you put someone in power that is going to put those green initiatives in place. Sometimes as consumers we feel a lot of blame, but it is also the state and the bigger companies that need to take responsibility because they are the ones that pollute. We have a great opportunity every time we vote to ensure that we can have a sustainable future.
ESPN: What can clubs do? And do you find resistance among fellow players?
BellerÃn: Regardless of what position we hold, we all hold responsibility, and we can always make time to make good decisions. When creating certain habits requires friction, it becomes more difficult to bring change. That's why it's important that clubs push and promote these kinds of initiatives: because it makes it easier for players to follow. For a football club to be conscious of that, to put systems into place for fans, players and staff which make it easier for us all to have a greener lifestyle, is important and an inspiration.
A small example: if you have three different bins in every dressing room, you don't need to go looking for the right bin to recycle, it's already there. In sport, there are so many things that we do because of tradition: we get loads of planes, we wear a new shirt every game; I have voiced my view on that. There are things that we have done in our past that we need to adjust toward our future. It's not just in football; it's in the way we go on holiday, the way we travel.
At Arsenal under Arsene Wenger, if we went to Manchester or Liverpool, we went by train. Those are simple, cleaner options. I understand that if you play on the other side of Europe, planes are needed for the competition to function. Sometimes when you try to change something that has been done a certain way too quickly, it doesn't change at all. But just by promoting trains, taking a bus rather than flying ... This has to come from the top, it's not something that needs to fall only on clubs or players. We don't decide, we just go where the team manager tells us.
It is up to us as players, fans and teams, though, to demand those resources and the help we need to make change possible. It needs to be slow, organic, something we can all do to create a better future. It has to be a global initiative, coming from everyone -- football clubs, FAs, governments -- to make sure there is less waste in the products we use, the transport we use. We have to feel there is help from people at the top to make it easier at the bottom.
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