Real Madrid blast 'rigged' refereeing after shock loss

Real Madrid on Monday blasted refereeing in Spain as "rigged" and "completely discredited" following the club's shock 1-0 defeat at struggling Espanyol over the weekend.

The Spanish giants were left furious after Espanyol defender Carlos Romero was not shown a red card for his reckless tackle on Kylian Mbappe in the 61st minute of Saturday's game.

Romero was only booked for a cynical foul and went on to net the winner, which left Real Madrid leading La Liga by a single point.

"The events of the match exceeded any margin for human error or refereeing interpretation," the secretary of Real's board of directors, Jose Luis del Valle Perez, wrote in a letter to Spain's football federation (RFEF) which the club posted online.

"What happened at the RCDE Stadium represents the peak of a completely discredited refereeing system, in which decisions against Real Madrid have reached a level of manipulation and alteration of the competition that cannot be ignored," he added.

In addition to Romero being spared a red card, a goal by Vinicius Junior was disallowed after Mbappe was adjudged to have fouled his marker.

"Given the seriousness of the facts, Real Madrid demand that the RFEF immediately hand over the VAR audios relating to these two key actions in the match," the club said.

Real Madrid called for a "complete" reform of the refereeing system in Spain, accusing it of being "completely rigged and structurally built to protect itself".

"When those who should be the object of supervision and control are, at the same time, a decisive factor in the choice of those who should carry out this task of supervision, we end up with what we are currently experiencing," the club said, adding the system "has proved to be corrupt from within".

Real coach Carlo Ancelotti criticised the decision not to send off Roemro after the match, saying "it was a clear foul, a very ugly tackle, lucky there's no serious injury."