Biscayan Referees Promoted: González, Etayo & Gallastegui

Three Biscay referees are in luck. As every season, the Spanish Federation has reported the promotions and descents in the main divisions of national football. In the first category there are three colleges of the territory who will see their work rewarded: Jon Ander González, Gorka Etayo and Arantza Gallastegui. In the letter, the highest state agency also indicates the announced goodbye of the Biscay Trencilla Aitor Villate Martínez, which said goodbye on June 3 after 24 years in arbitration.

Jon Ander González Esteban, after six seasons in Second, makes the leap to the elite at 40 years and will be one of the new alternate referees in the highest category, in which he has already been twice as a fourth referee, in a ray-barcelona of the 2014-15 and in a huesca-reader in the 18-19. It will do it as a reserve. This means that it will move to the parties as one more and that it will be available to act in the place of a line or fourth judge who cannot continue their work. In parallel, he will continue to act as a main collegiate in Second.

Born in Barakaldo in 1985, González Esteban has directed this past course two Cup meetings and 23 in the silver division, including the Oviedo-Almería that certified the pass of the Asturian team to the final of the Playoff, where he got the ascent against the Mirandés. As the main referee, in total, he has directed 245 games. Averages 4.65 yellow cards, 0.3 expulsions and 0.25 penalties. It has been in the VAR on 35 occasions. He is also a degree in computer engineering from the University of Deusto with a specialty in Java web development. He worked at Ekoleds Innovation, at the Telefónica and Zylk Foundation before devoting all his time to arbitration.

Gorka Etayo Herrera is a new second referee. It will be one of the five new sides of the silver category. This season has directed a cup shock and 14 in the first federation, including the return of the final of the promotion to Second last Saturday, a Ponferradina-Andorra that ended the whole of the celebration principality.

Born in Bilbao in December 1995, and graduated in physical activity and sport sciences, Etayo Herrera will reach thirty immersed in an interesting projection. Despite his youth he has already served as a fourth referee in the first ten times, seven of them this last year. His last game, in fact, was an athletic-barcelona. And the previous one of high voltage such as Osasuna-Real Madrid. As the main collegiate his account amounts to 87 commitments since he debuted in 2018 in the extinct second B. His average yellow is 4.86 per party, 0.14 expulsions and another 0.14 penalty of penalties fruit at the twelve maximum penalties he has indicated in the bronze categories.

ELITE RETURN

Finally, Arantza Gallastegui Pérez recovers the square that lost in the F League, the highest category of women’s football. He directed three meetings at 23-24 before being relegated to the First Federation, the Second Division. He combined this work with arbitrated matches in the third Male RFEF, as well as a division of honor and national league in the youth category. The next course will be alternate in the elite and will continue to direct matches in other categories. In addition, he took a double degree in sciences of physical activity and sport with primary education at the University of Deusto. Its training is completed with a master’s degree in healthy aging and quality of life and a postgraduate degree in healthy lifestyles, both at the University of the Basque Country. He is also a monitoring of leisure and free time and currently combines whistle with his work as a functional training monitor at the Oreka Physiotherapy Clinic.

Gallastegui Pérez will turn 28 and is from Galdakao. In the newly completed campaign he has led 23 games, the last corresponding to the final for the promotion to Primera that faced the Cacereño – Athletic’s Growth in Copa – with the Logroño, with a prize for Las Riojanas. In that list he has shown 66 yellow cards and only registers two expulsions. The Biscay made history in 2019 to be part, as the main referee, of the first female trio in a Male Division Party. “It is a pride and I also hope it is a drop of hope for the rest of the companions that come from below so that they can reach where they propose,” he confessed to El Correo with just 21 years. By then he already arbitrated in the Second Women’s Division. It soon made the leap to the elite. First it premiered in 2020-21, with four games. He added in 21-22 others, including a Barcelona-Atletic, regardless of the three of 23-24.

Mention also for Nahia Alonso, who formed in that historical trio of 2019 with Gallastegui and Antonella Navarro. Bilbao, which in August will turn 28, has achieved as an assistant referee the promotion to the first male federation after participating in ten meetings in Second RFEF. His performance is also worth being a new FIFA assistant, third in the list, and achieving the Vicente Acevedo award as the best line judge in the bronze category. On the other side of the currency, Vizcaíno Asier Villanueva loses his position in the second federation.