Barcelona change Camp Nou plans as third-tier opening is pushed back to next season | OneFootball

Barcelona have changed their plans for the third tier of the Spotify Camp Nou, with the club now deciding not to open the entire section until next season.

According to SPORT, Barça had initially planned to introduce the third tier in stages during the current campaign, following the same approach used elsewhere in the stadium renovation.

That plan has now been abandoned. Instead, the club will keep the entire third tier closed throughout this season and open it when the team returns to the stadium next year, by which point the roof is also expected to be in place.

Notably, the change has been factored into Barcelona’s budget for the current season, which was approved at the Delegates’ Assembly on September 19.

Why Barcelona changed the third-tier plan

As stated before, the original idea was to open the third tier in three phases.

The first phase was expected before the end of 2026 and would have included the touchline area alongside parts of the North and South Stands.

The second phase would then have introduced the grandstand and the remainder of the South Stand, while the remaining section of the North Stand would have been completed in a third phase.

However, Barcelona encountered an important obstacle with the licensing process.

Barcelona have changed their plans with the opening of the third tier of Spotify Camp Nou. (Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images)

Club officials had previously expected the permits required for the third tier to arrive quickly because many of the requirements were already known from the earlier stages of the project. That assumption proved incorrect.

Barcelona City Council would not allow the third tier to be licensed in separate phases. 

Instead, a single licence is required for the entire section, meaning the whole third tier must be ready before spectators can be admitted, which significantly changed the club’s calculations.

Third tier would have opened too late

Barcelona’s calculations suggested that the third tier could only have opened during roughly the final two months of the season.

The club subsequently carried out a feasibility study to determine whether opening the section for such a short period made financial sense, and the conclusion was that it did not.

The additional ticket revenue generated by opening the third tier for only a few matches would have been lower than the costs Barcelona would have incurred as a result of the regulatory requirements surrounding its operation.

That left the club facing another complication.

Barcelona have factored in several decisions in their decision. (Photo by Eric Alonso/Getty Images)

Once the current season ends, work is scheduled to begin on installing the roof at Spotify Camp Nou. On that note, opening the third tier shortly before that work would have created additional logistical and financial problems.

Installing the roof will make the pitch unusable during the process, while several thousand seats installed in the third tier would then have had to be replaced or dealt with as the construction work progressed.

So, rather than incur those costs for a short period of additional stadium use, Barcelona have decided to wait.

Spotify Camp Nou capacity will still increase

The decision does not mean Barcelona will remain at their current capacity throughout the season.

Financial vice-president Ferran Olive explained that the club expects the stadium to finish the campaign with slightly more than 70,000 spectators, compared with the current capacity of around 62,000.

The increase will come primarily from the VIP boxes positioned between the second and third tiers.

Those facilities are currently a major focus of the construction work, with Barcelona aiming to have them operational before the end of the season.