La Liga head defends temporary redundancies

The La Liga president, Javier Tebas, clarified this Sunday on Twitter that a temporary redundancy is a "legal instrument in place if your activity is reduced because of force majeure," as is happening to football clubs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The players of Barcelona, Betis, Atleti, Zaragoza, Osasuna and others, understand that La Liga's economic control has nothing to do with the financial effects of COVID-19. A temporary redundancy is a legal instrument in place if your activity is reduced due to force majeure," the league president wrote in response to the statement issued by players association AFE following a meeting with captains and representatives of the La Liga and Segunda teams.

In the statement, AFE indicated that it was "strange La Liga supported them, bearing in mind the economic control and how healthy clubs' finances are and that there is not a fall back in place for a temporary situation of two months as the competition has been suspended, not cancelled."

"And bearing in mind the clubs and the players are individually reaching agreements when it comes to salaries. What we footballers aren't going to do is not be guaranteed our workers rights," the players union said.

Tebas has also responded to Iker Casillas' proposal of ending the season in December and then playing the football season over the course of the calendar year. Tebas says this is unviable snce it could lead to losses of "billions of euros" and has explained that new dates to resume the season have already been talked about.