Javier Ribalta was born on 14 September 1980 and began his professional career in 2008 at Torino, where he worked as a scout. A year later, in the summer of 2009, he moved to a similar position at AC Milan. Two years later he took over as Chief Scout at Italian side Novara Calcio.

In 2012 Javier joined Juventus and spent five years at the Old Lady of Italian football. While there he took the lead in the transfers of Dani Alves, Kingsley Coman, Fernando Llorente, Sami Khedira, Paul Pogba, Alvaro Morata, Alex Sandro and Paulo Dybala among others.  Prior to joining Zenit, Javier worked as Chief Scout at Manchester United.

In July 2018, Ribalta was appointed Zenit’s Sporting Director and in those three years the St. Petersburg side won two league titles, the Russian Cup and the Russian Super Cup.
On Thursday 8 April, the Spaniard said goodbye to the team and answered a few questions for the club's official website.

— Javier, today you are leaving Zenit and St. Petersburg. How do you feel right now?
— I'm a little sad of course, because I’ve spent three wonderful years here. To tell you the truth, I don't feel happy at all.

— Looking back, what would you call your main achievement here in St. Petersburg?
— If we look back at what happened in addition to our achievements on the pitch, where we won and then defended the league title, I consider it an achievement how I was treated here and how I treated others. I’ve made many new friends here and everyone was happy to work with me and I was happy to work with this club. This is the most important thing for me.

— Do you have any words for the Zenit fans?
— Please continue to be the best fans in Russia and continue to support Zenit! I think very soon we’ll all be celebrating our third title in a row.

Everyone at Zenit thanks Javier Ribalta for his successful work with the club and we wish him every success in the future.