With two games to go, Barcelona currently lead the Spanish first division with Real Madrid four points adrift in second.

The Catalan club are favourites to win the title but there is a catch. They may not be able to. As it stands, the league is set to go on strike this weekend.

When I first saw the news — at half one in the morning last Wednesday — I thought it was a wind-up.

There was no way the league would go on strike with two games to go and the race for the title as close as it is.

A strike would mean the final two fixtures and the league cup final — to be contested between Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao — would not go ahead.

The situation in Spain is a very serious one.

The government and the football league are in dispute over the distribution of the TV money, with the government passing a law for collective bargaining for TV rights — although this has yet to be passed.

At the moment, each club negotiates their own deal, which means that Barcelona and Real Madrid get over half of the revenue while the other 18 teams scramble around for what is left.

It is why when you hand over your hard-earned money to Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB to watch Sky Sports, every weekend you will see both Barcelona and Madrid live in the evenings.

Interestingly, both Barca and Madrid have reluctantly accepted that things need to change. Though that could just be because without the other 18 teams, there would be no league to actually play in.

The way the English TV deal works, each side is shown live at least once, with the “bigger” clubs shown more often.
It is why Sky Sports’ billing of Super Sunday sometimes consists of a boring mid-table clash.

We can cry foul and outrage at the ludicrous sum the Premier League received a few months ago — £5.1 billion — but that is equally shared out.

It allows smaller clubs to bring in new players and pay their wages. The parachute payments teams receive after relegation down to the Championship can sometimes provide financial security for clubs for decades.

But this is not the case in Spain and it is why the strike is backed by the players’ union AFE.

Though they support the idea of collective bargaining, they are unhappy with the share of the money set aside for second-division clubs — 10 per cent if the law goes ahead.

AFE president Luis Rubiales gave a statement last week, accompanied by players such as Real Madrid and Spain captain Iker Casillas and Barcelona captain Xavi Hernandez — two of Spain’s most high-profile players who support him.

“We have decided on a stoppage as we know we are right,” he said. “We feel strong. We want a centralised sale (of TV rights), but not for them to touch our rights, and even less in such a surprising way. We have been brought to this situation. This is a defensive move, not an attack.”

Some clubs already struggle to pay their players and staff a weekly wage — Racing Santander forfeited their Spanish Cup quarter-final against Real Sociedad as a protest against unpaid wages and was met by a standing ovation by their fans.

Teams in the bottom half of the first division are unable to offer the sums of money that some English Championship sides can offer, which is why the Spanish market is such a lucrative one for British clubs.

Cheap players who are happy to accept a low wage because there is nothing better in Spain.

It is believed that had the league not gone on strike, the players were going to anyway and it would not have been the first time they have taken action over unpaid wages.

In 2011, the start of the league was delayed by a few weeks when players — mostly in the second division — went on strike when they hadn’t been paid by their clubs for months.

At the time, the AFE said that 200 players are owed money by clubs, with a total of £44 million outstanding.

A Spanish court will today decide whether the union, with the backing of Spanish football federation the RFEF, will be allowed to go on strike this weekend or whether it will be temporarily suspended — which is what the Spanish league wants.

But the RFEF getting involved may have get Spain in trouble with Fifa. Under their rules, governmental interference in football’s administration is prohibited.

The RFEF is suggesting that the Spanish government is doing just that, which could see the national banned from international competitions.

With the thought of Spain not competing at next year’s European Championship and no actual conclusion to the league, it seems highly unlikely that the strike will go ahead.

But the four parties can’t come to an agreement — there was an emergency meeting called on Monday — and time is running out.

It is looking increasingly likely that this weekend’s games will not go ahead but both Barca and Madrid have too much say in what goes on in the league and they will want to finish off the season — especially Barca.