Between the Negreira case and the Al Ahly and Pyramids scandal: who is the "five girls" referee tipped to take charge of the Clasico?
A dating show star
Spanish football is pulling in two directions. Barcelona head into the Clasico buoyed by optimism and confidence after a string of emphatic wins and consistent performances across all competitions, while Real Madrid sink into a whirlwind of tension and anger, with Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho back on the bench and an open war escalating against the refereeing system.
Into that powder keg steps a name. The well-known programme "El Chiringuito" revealed that referee Javier Alberola Rojas is the leading candidate to take charge of the most eagerly awaited fixture in Spain.
Social media did the rest. Users dug out an embarrassing archive video of the referee from his television past, and the storm broke.
From reality television star to international referee
Alberola Rojas is today one of the best-known top-flight referees, but few knew that he was once a star of the legendary dating show "Next" on Atresmedia, the programme that helped people find a partner.
Fans unearthed a priceless introductory video lasting one minute and twenty seconds. In it, "Javi", as he introduced himself at the time, appears aged just nineteen, a student and sports coach, delivering the famous line that has now become a trend: "Today I have five girls all to myself, aren't you jealous?".
What a change. The young man who was looking for a partner in front of the cameras is now thirty-five years old, has officiated 168 matches in La Liga, and is preparing for his biggest event in 2026 after his promotion from the second group to the first group in UEFA's referee classification.
A health battle and Arminio's "patronage"
His career has never been easy. In August 2022, during pre-season preparations, he came close to retiring from refereeing altogether because of a serious health problem involving the blockage of two veins near the collarbone, which required him to undergo two operations that kept him away from the pitch until 14 December. He officially returned on 22 December 2022 through the Copa del Rey, in the match between Caserineo and Girona, then in La Liga on 30 December between Getafe and Mallorca.
According to the newspaper "Mundo Deportivo", this promotion carries the honorary patronage of the late Victoriano Sanchez Arminio, the former president of the Technical Committee of Referees, who saw in him from an early stage one of the most talented young referees in Spain, to the extent that he selected him to attend the prestigious UEFA CORE course in April 2018 when he was only twenty-six.
The response to the Negreira case
The name of referee Javier Alberola Rojas was linked to the Negreira case after it appeared on the list of referees who received training courses from a company owned by Javier Enriquez Romero, son of Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Referees.
Alberola Rojas exercised his right of reply under the law regarding the article published on 15 August 2026 under the headline "Six of Negreira's referees remain in Spanish refereeing", on the website "OkDiario".
Via the same platform, the Spanish referee explained: "I did not pay 25,000 euros to Negreira's son. I paid a total sum of only 7,500 euros for training courses, through official and declared invoices".
The scandal of the Al Ahly v Pyramids match
Spain is not the only place he has caused a stir. The same referee sparked widespread controversy in Egypt after officiating the match between Al Ahly and Pyramids on 12 July 2024 in matchweek 14 of the Egyptian league, which ended 3-2 to Al Ahly, after he awarded a hotly disputed penalty to Hussein El Shahat following a challenge with Mohamed Hamdi, from which Wessam Abou Ali scored the second goal.
Former Egyptian referee Mohamed Adel said in television comments at the time: "This incident is not a penalty at all, as admitted by the analysts of FIFA's refereeing committee", arguing that the choice of a Spanish referee was unjustified, particularly as Al Ahly's coach at the time, Jose Riveiro, was from the same country. So the young referee faces the microscope once again before he blows the whistle on the most important match of his career.
