Barcelona won’t return to Camp Nou despite being granted licence to re-open stadium | OneFootball

Barcelona will not be returning to Camp Nou imminently, despite being granted a licence to reopen their stadium for 27,000 fans. The Blaugrana have been attempting to obtain the licence to reopen their ground since mid-July, after originally promising to open their stadium again in early August with 45,000 fans.

The licence would allow Barcelona to open the Tribuna (main) stand and Gol Sur (South Goal stand) for the two tiers currently in place, after the club managed to fulfil Barcelona City Council’s regulations and safety checks to complete ‘Phase 1A’. However it appears Barcelona will wait until ‘Phase 1B’ to return to their ground, when they can in fact open their stadium for 47,000 fans, allowing fans into all four stands. The reason being that financially it makes more sense for Barcelona to continue playing at the 55,000-capacity Montjuic.

When will Barcelona return to Camp Nou?

Despite obtaining the licence to reopen the stadium, Barcelona fans are no closer to knowing when they will next attend the Spotify Camp Nou. Institutional Vice-President Elena Fort told Sport that they were content with the decision.

“We received the license with great joy and caution. Finally, we have this first permit. We’re very happy; we’re all looking forward to enjoying this Spotify Camp Nou, to returning home, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. We must receive the permits for the occupancy of the second and third phases.”

Image via RTVE

“We’ll have to wait a little longer for the full opening of the first and second tiers. This permit may be a little more complex, but all parties have been learning how to work together to streamline processes.”

When pushed for more details, Fort remained ambiguous about the return, which may well be put off until 2026 according to some reports. Barcelona are set to be at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys for their next three home games against Girona, Olympiakos and Elche.

“We believe obtaining the license for the second phase will be easier because we already have all the necessary experience and it’s less technically complex,” but did “not want to set dates. We will work to ensure the return takes place as soon as possible.”

Defence of contruction group Limak

This week there has also been controversy over the Turkish construction group Limak, who were the surprise winners of the bidding process for the Camp Nou rebuild. Some reports alleged that other companies had scored higher in the evaluation process, with Limak on course to return Camp Nou to working order at least a year behind schedule. Fort defended their choice.

“It often seems easy to impute things. ‘They tell me,’ ‘they tell me,’ ‘there’s a report’… If anyone thinks that, in a €1.5 billion project financed by American companies, they would allow the company receiving the money to do whatever it wanted and manipulate a tender, they don’t understand the world we live in. It’s the most closely monitored bidding process in existence. The controls have been internal and external.”

Meanwhile Barcelona treasurer Ferran Olive noted that finance group Goldman Sachs, the club’s main financial backer with whom they took out the loan to renovate Camp Nou, gave the green light on Limak.

“The club made the decision with Goldman. But the one who made the decision, in the end, was Goldman,” Olive told Cadena SER, as quoted by MD.