Tebas: Once we're allowed to restart the season, clubs will be punished if they refuse to play LaLiga Sent stark warning after concerns over player safety

LaLiga president Javier Tebas has insisted that teams who refuse to play the rest of the season will be punished.

Organisations like the Spanish Footballers' Association (AFE) have expressed their concern over player safety once the season resumes.

"If a club refuses to play when the authorities have said it's okay, they will lose their games [by default] like what has happened before," Tebas said in a video conference call on Adea Conecta.

During the call, Tebas outlined his and LaLiga's plans to complete the season in five phases.

"The first phase, as soon as the State of Emergency was sounded, was to extend the calendar so that we can return to train and play. We had to plan this with UEFA and the rest of the European leagues," Tebas said.

"We worked on blocks, leagues and then European competitions. It seems as though now it's all going to be done in blocks.

"In Germany, they've already been training for a few days and are predicted to resume in May. The option of blocks could be the most likely.

"Once we'd sorted out the scheduling, we started the second phase which is the evaluation of losses that we'd make if we didn't play or if we had to play behind closed doors.

"We calculated that these losses would be one billion euros if we didn't complete the season. If we played behind closed doors, it would be 300 million euros.

"From then on, we established working strategies. Some clubs applied for ERTEs and others agreed to wage cuts for their players.

"The third phase was the development of a protocol for when and how we returned to training.

"It's a special topic because it's a contact sport and we need to have health and safety.

"All the clubs have to do it together. If one doesn't abide by the health protocol and makes a mistake and players get infected, it affects everyone else.

"The fourth phase is the protocol on how we're going to play behind closed doors.

"It's not the same as the one for training because here we have to decide when the teams travel, where they stay, how many people are allowed in the stadiums etc.

"We'll have to sit down with the TV companies to negotiate figures, but we'll do that when we know when we're going to get back playing.

"We're talking about 500 million euros of losses if we don't play.

"As for playing behind closed doors, we'd try to lose as little as possible, but there's still damage from TV because we sell parts of our rights to bars and you can't watch it there. They'll lose some 39 million euros.

"The fifth phase is planning for what will happen next season. It's very likely that we'll play behind closed doors until December and when we have fans back, we won't be able to have mass gatherings."

As for LaLiga's plans if they can't restart the season, Tebas admitted that they weren't even thinking about it.

"We don't have that scenario at the moment," Tebas said.

"Neither UEFA nor LaLiga have planned for that.

"Up until July 31, I'm sure that we'll be able to paly and even be able to extend that a bit longer.

"I'm convinced that we're going to complete the season and that we'll have space to start and finish the next one in time."