Spanish football in strike !!! At least we still can watch some Clasicos, those players still get paid !

La Liga players, including, from fourth left, Fernando Llorente, Iker Casillas, Xabi Alonso and Carles Puyol, are backing the strike. Photograph: Juan Hidalgo/EPA

It should have been a Super Sunday. The season was due to kick off with Spain's other clásico between two of only three clubs to have spent their entire histories in the first division. At 6pm, it was Real Madrid v Athletic Bilbao, the latter under the new management of the fascinating Marcelo Bielsa. Then, at 8pm, there was a chance to see La Liga's latest force, Qatari-owned Málaga, with nine new signings and the league's third biggest budget, take on Barcelona at home. And finally, at 10pm, Real Betis were to make their top-flight return – against city rivals Sevilla in the most passionate derby in the country.

It should have been special but La Liga will not start this weekend. The players' union, the AFE, is in dispute with the league, the LFP, and has declared a strike. La Liga may not even start next weekend: the original proposal was for a two-week walkout, although meetings are scheduled to try to avoid industrial action dragging on. In fact, it may be extended further: there has been talk of an indefinite stoppage. There have been many strike threats, including two last season alone. The surprise is that this one will go ahead.

Meetings were arranged for Friday morning but both sides knew that even if there was an agreement, it would probably be too late to begin the season. In any case, they were so far apart that agreement was impossible. For the first time in 27 years, a players' strike would happen in Spain.

There was a different feel to these threats from the start. When the AFE president José Luis Rubiales announced the players' intentions he sat before a "team photo" of almost 100 footballers – including the Spain captain Iker Casillas, Carles Puyol, David Villa and Xabi Alonso. It was an impressive show of strength and an important one. The league president, José Luis Astiazarán, called the AFE's action blackmail, but the reasons were clear.

The LFP and the AFE have been negotiating over an agreement to cover labour relations between workers (the players) and their companies (the clubs) for some time. There are a number of minor stumbling blocks relating to image rights, commercial marketing ventures and international breaks, but the key issue is simple. The players' union wanted a central fund put in place to protect players when clubs fail to pay them. The LFP agreed with the principle but in practice they were a long way apart.

Rubiales demanded a fund big enough to protect all unpaid wages to all players. The LFP offered €10m (£8.6m) a year. That, responded Rubiales, would not be enough to cover the debts already accumulated in 2010-2011, let alone in the future. "This is not about making more money," he said. "We are not demanding more, we are demanding only that players get paid what it says in their contracts." Players like Casillas and Puyol may not have had problems and could easily survive if a couple of payments went astray, but they are the exception not the rule in a country where many players make comparatively small amounts.

According to Rubiales, more than 200 players have experienced salaries being paid late or not at all. Last season €50m worth of wages went unpaid. The season before it was €12m.

Spanish football is in financial crisis. Betis, Zaragoza, Racing Santander, Rayo Vallecano, Hércules, Córdoba and Recreativo de Huelva are in administration. Over the past few years 22 of the 42 clubs in Spain's top two divisions have passed through administration at one stage or another.

Part of the reason is that there is no sporting penalty for economic mismanagement: administration becomes an opportunity rather than a problem for some club owners – the chance not to pay players or other clubs. The AFE has succeeded in bringing a proposed law before the senate to enforce relegation on clubs who do not pay but there is still €52.8m to be recovered from last year alone. The problem, Astiazarán notes, is that the LFP simply cannot offer what it does not have.

So the big day is postponed. For fans of Málaga, Betis and promoted Rayo in particular, it is a blow, but most sympathise with the players.

The next issue will be how to find a way of recovering the lost round of games in a tightly packed season – not least because the LFP does not want clubs making up their games in hand in piecemeal fashion. It prefers to have a whole round of matches. The proposal is not to move all the fixtures on a week but rather to keep them as they are and play week one's fixtures on 27 and 28 December, eating into the traditional Christmas break.