There would be no Spanish Primera Division without Barcelona, La Liga president Javier Tebas said on Thursday ahead of Sunday's elections in Catalonia.
"I stated my position months ago. We haven't spoken about the subject of independence, it is a sensitive matter and we will not touch upon it today during the Assembly," Tebas said. "I don't value a league without Barca. I don't think it will happen because Catalonia will continue to be part of Spain. The Catalonian clubs would not be able to play in La Liga per the Sports Law."
This weekend, Catalonia goes to the polls in a regional election that is being seen as a second vote on independence after an unofficial referendum last year showed 80 percent of Catalans were in favour of breaking away.
"We would lose everything [if Barcelona were not part of La Liga]," Tebas said. "If Spain is broken up, if Catalonia ceases to be part of Spain, we would all lose. The projects that we have taken up over centuries in unity would generate a lot of trauma."
Barcelona were shocked 4-1 at Celta Vigo in Wednesday evening's La Liga clash. The result was Barcelona's worst La Liga defeat in 273 games, since May 7, 2008 at Real Madrid. It also snapped Barca's 18-game La Liga unbeaten streak.
Tebas said he could not imagine a league without Catalonian clubs.
"The majority of Spaniards have something to say about Catalonia as well. This is a national league because it is for all of Spain."
Tebas tweeted on Monday that "if Spain breaks, La Liga breaks," although Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu said the club was remaining "neutral" ahead of the poll.
Tebas also defended the league's new television rights distribution approval vote in the face of the lone dissenting club, Real Madrid.
Tebas confirmed that there was one club voting against the measure on Thursday with four clubs abstaining.
"It was not a personal victory," he said. "It was what the clubs wanted, they wanted the league's by-laws to reflect a centralised television rights contract. It is good and it passed by a majority of votes. Any club can challenge any decision made by the league. A club may also go to court. There is nothing wrong with that. Going to the courts and seeking your rights is an indicator of the strength of our court system."
The new "collectivised" TV deal was mandated into law by the Spanish government earlier this year, although the situation for the 2015-16 season remains as much as before with Barcelona and Real Madrid receiving €140 million each -- almost half of the total amount available.
The law aims to bring Spanish football in line with how England's and Italy's football leagues are marketed, and will correct existing imbalances in earnings that allow top clubs to claim a disproportionate amount of the TV income, leaving lesser clubs struggling for money.
Most of Spain's 42 professional clubs sought to broker this deal and make it similar to that employed by the Premier League, which in February struck a deal for 2016-19 worth about £5 billion.