Marta Huerta de Aza: The rising star in Spanish refereeing

On June 24, 2024, the Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) and the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) announced Marta Huerta de Aza as the first head female referee to officiate matches in the Spanish Second Division (male).

The presence of female referees in the men's professional football league will be a historic moment for Spanish football. "It is a historic moment that represents a new advance for women's refereeing in Spain," shared the RFEF in a public statement.

Marta Huerta de Aza's achievement goes hand in hand with that of other women who will also enjoy their corresponding promotions: Judit Romano García and Silvia Fernández Pérez, as assistants in the First and Second Division, respectively; and Olatz Rivera Olmedo and Eugenia Gil Soriano.

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Huerta de Aza comes from the refereeing school of Tinerfeño College in Tenerife, where she began refereeing at the age of 19.

"Women's football is not even... not even close to what it is today. I met a boy who was a referee, he encouraged me and I will be eternally grateful for that little push they gave me to be what I am today. In the end, this influences you both on a personal and professional level," she said.

She was promoted to the top category of women's football in 2017, making her debut at the Levante UD and Madrid CFF fixture.

A little less than a year later, on June 2, 2018, she would be appointed to direct the final of the Queen's Cup between FC Barcelona and Atlético de Madrid, her first big match to which two other Spanish Super Cup finals would follow in 2020 and 2022.

The Spanish referee has also been consolidated as a solid pick for both UEFA and FIFA tournaments. She began refereeing matches in the Women's Champions League in 2022, the Women's Euro Cup 2022 in England, the 2022 U-20 Women's World Cup in Costa Rica; and, above all, the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

The Spanish referee couldn't believe the news! "It was in the morning when I saw the call from Vicente Lizondo, I said well, these are for two things, or for good news or bad news. So the sooner you say it, the better," she shared during an interview for Radio Marca.

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"It's true that when he told me that I was one of the lucky ones who would be in professional football, I couldn't stop crying. I told him over and over again: 'But it's not a lie, right? You're really telling me that.' It's something so good, so desired that it's still hard to believe, but we can't stop," she added.

"I assimilated the news little by little. The previous weeks people started to make pools and they had told me that my name was coming up, but until the name doesn't appear on paper, there's nothing," she shared during an interview.

An interview in which she recalled that, like everything in life, "in the end, football is football: it is difficult to referee certain players and also certain female players, I think it is not so much about gender," she pointed out.

Journalist Juanma Castaño also asked about her references within the world of refereeing in Spain, to which she pointed out Jesús Gil Manzano. "For everything he has achieved on the international level," she highlighted.

Huerta de Aza does not hide her ambition to continue achieving her dreams within the world of football. It's a big step for her, and she feels she can handle the pressure of refereeing in the upper echelons of Spanish football.

According to the RFEF, "she continues to break barriers in both national and international competitions."

Today, we can follow Huerta de Aza, both personally and professionally, through her Instagram account (@huertamarta3), where she has more than 900,000 followers, and starting in February, every weekend she will be officiating a match in the Spanish Second Division. May it be the first of many…

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