MADRID (AFP) - The referee in charge of Real Madrid's 2-1 weekend defeat by Racing Santander said Tuesday that he fears for his family's safety after receiving telephone death threats following the game.

"I have received more than 50 phone calls at my home threatening me and my family with death. I like being a referee and I do it with honour and dignity but I have a family and it's hard," Javier Turienzo Alvarez told Punto Radio.

"I have a six-year-old daughter who returned from the park yesterday crying. My daughter said: 'the children tell me you ruined things for Real'... and it hurts me to the core," he added.

Alvarez enraged Real fans when he awarded Santander two penalties in the last 20 minutes of Saturday's match and sent off two Real Madrid players, defenders Ivan Helguera and Alvaro Mejia, in the 87th and 90th minutes respectively.

Real's defeat, coupled with Barcelona's 1-0 home win over Mallorca on Sunday, left the nine-times European champions five points adrift of their bitter rivals in the title race.

Helguera said Tuesday that he believes he did not deserve to get sent off.

"The first call was not a penalty. That's obvious. But we have to give it a rest. I don't think there is anything sketchy going on behind the refereeing," he told a news conference after Real's daily training session.

After the match Real sports director Predrag Mijatovic criticized the refereeing, saying "some very strange things have happened".

"It isn't normal what they have done to us," he added.

Alvarez rejected Mijatovic's comments and lodged a complaint over the threats with a court in the northwestern city of Leon where he lives.

"There is nothing strange going on. Everyone makes mistakes -- players, directors, referees," he said.

Alvarez told the radio station he recorded several telephone numbers from which the threatening calls originated.