Barcelona has just confirmed that the team will return to their home stadium Camp Nou to play the pre-season match in the annual Joan Gamper friendly cup. This match will take place on August 10, but it is not the mark that Camp Nou has completed the renovation. It has only completed about 60% of its capacity but is qualified to welcome fans.
According to information from the club, the unfinished areas include the 3rd floor of the stands and the VIP area. In addition, the roof of the stadium and a few other facilities inside has not been installed yet. The capacity of the new Camp Nou stadium could be more than 100,000 people, but for now, it will only accommodate about 25,000 people, or 1/4 of the maximum capacity.
When all are completed, Camp Nou will be the stadium with the largest capacity in Spain. To keep up with the progress for the new season, Barcelona has completed negotiations with La Liga. They have played the first part of the new season completely away. This is a special offer from the organizing committee, partly because of Barca's huge stature, such as the grandness of Camp Nou after the renovation.
When the plan to renovate the roof of Camp Nou was initiated, the Blaugrana hoped it would be put into operation from November 2024. This is the time to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the club's founding. However, for many different reasons in construction, the progress was about 1 year slower than planned.
The total cost for this project is about 900 million Euros. The winning bidder was the construction company Limak. However, although it can operate at full capacity before December this year, Camp Nou still needs to complete the surface of the field. This will take until the summer of 2026.
Since starting the renovation of Camp Nou, Barca has played at Lluis Companys. By the end of the 2024-2025 season, they have played all 2 seasons there. The contract for leasing to Lluis Companys will not be extended until the 2025-2026 season. Therefore, whether they like it or not, Barca still have to play at Camp Nou, despite not completing many items.
In fact, in the second half of the 2024-2025 season, Barca played more at home in La Liga. However, at that time, Camp Nou could not be put back into operation, so Lamine Yamal and his teammates still had to play at Lluis Companys.
The return of Camp Nou is considered extremely important for Barcelona. Not only does it help the team increase their dominance every time they play at home, the source of money from ticket sales and accompanying services will be a huge revenue. Barca fans will not be satisfied with the Joan Gamper Cup match having only welcomed 25,000 people, but it is the first step to relieve their thirst for cheering at Camp Nou in the past 2 years.
If everything goes well, on schedule, the complete Camp Nou stadium will start operating from September 2025. However, the schedule in the Champions League will be a huge problem. If Barca have to play the first rounds of the qualifying round at home, they may have to rent the Lluis Companys stadium but only rent it out in individual matches.
Last season, Barca initially extended the lease of Lluis Companys until January 2025 (expected to extend). The reason is that UEFA does not allow clubs to play in two different locations in matches in the Champions League qualifying stage.
Barcelona's first match in the Champions League next season will take place between September 16 and 18. If Camp Nou cannot keep up with the progress, this home match could be delayed until the second week of the group stage, scheduled to take place from September 30 to October 1, 2025.
