Barcelona go over-budget by €200-300 million in Spotify Camp Nou renovation works | OneFootball

The renovation of the Spotify Camp Nou has missed several deadlines over the past few years, and its reopening was thus pushed constantly until it finally opened last November, over 12 months after its scheduled reopening.

Since then, the Catalans have been playing in front of 45,000 fans with Phases 1A and 1B officially granted. Yet, that capacity is less than half of the complete stadium’s and the club are working hard to meet deadlines on the progress once again.

On one hand, the project has thus struggled continually to hit set time-bound deadlines, and the club’s forecast on that front was highly inaccurate.

Now, however, RAC1 (h/t SPORT) brings to light that even the financial aspect is turning out to be a similar story.

Far off the mark

As was the case with the deadlines, Barcelona are reportedly now facing a situation where the cost of the stadium’s renovation will shoot up significantly beyond what they initially budgeted for, leaving the club in a fix.

The renovated Spotify Camp Nou. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

The initial budget the Catalans set aside for the renovation was to the tune of €960 million, and construction company Limak were handed the deal for the same.

Yet, the final cost of the renovation is now expected to be between €200 million and €300 million more than expected, taking the total cost of the project to over €1.2 billion.

For a club already strapped for funds and with their hands tied, such a massive overshoot comes as a big blow. After all, they must now borrow that sum from the €1.5 billion loan taken from Goldman Sachs to pay for the stadium works.

The quicker the stadium can reopen new stands, the more revenue the club can generate from ticket sales and there is thus a sense of urgency to get the approval for Phase 1C.

An inspection is expected in the coming days, although the license is unlikely to be granted in time for the Levante clash this weekend.