Barcelona to make Camp Nou return in partial reopening for pre-season match

New York Times

25-06-2025

Barcelona will return to the Camp Nou for a pre-season match on August 10, marking the stadium's partial reopening as it undergoes extensive renovation.
The stadium will host Barca's annual Joan Gamper trophy with a reduced capacity due to the unfinished works, which the club say still impacts the third tier of stands, the VIP section, the roof installation and other facilities.
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Club sources, speaking on the basis of anonymity to protect relationships, expect the capacity for the pre-season match to be limited to 25,000, with the stadium to hold 105,000 upon completion — which would be the biggest capacity in Spain.
Barcelona have made a request to La Liga to play their opening league games of 2025-26 away from home in order to give them more time for the Camp Nou to be ready to host matches.
Barca had hoped to be back in their revamped home for their 125th anniversary in November 2024
Barcelona and the construction company Limak have agreed a date of June 2026 for the ground to be completed — current costs for the project stand at €900million ($1billion).
Barca played at the city's Estadi Lluis Companys (also referred to as Montjuic) for two full seasons, but their lease to use the facility has not been carried over into 2025-26.
In 2024-25, Barcelona were granted permission to play more home league games in the second half of the season because they were expecting to be back at the Camp Nou by then.
In 2022, Real Madrid were allowed to play their first three La Liga games away from home because the club were finalising the rebuilding works of the Santiago Bernabeu, which were also delayed.
This will be a hugely important date in Barcelona's project as a football institution. The return to the Camp Nou was always going to be one of the club's stories of the summer, given the need to finalise the process and start capitalising the new source of income the stadium will generate.
Having a set date to return, even with it being an initial test and with a highly reduced capacity, is a ray of hope for every Barca fan.
Yes, there is a caveat that this is not their definitive return date. As much as Barca expect to play the whole new season at the Camp Nou, the stadium won't be fully finished until summer 2026 at the earliest.
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But this is definitely a sign of progress after the club postponed their return to the stadium multiple times last season. When rebuilding works started, back in 2023, Barcelona hoped to be back at the Camp Nou in a reduced capacity by the end of 2024.
Despite this, don't expect Barca to start the 2025-26 La Liga campaign at their iconic home ground. As the club confirmed in their latest statement, works will continue as they conduct their first test with the Joan Gamper game on August 10.
Club sources, speaking anonymously in order to protect their jobs, admit a more realistic date to be finally back is September this year. There is also an unofficial deadline in the mind of those inside the club, which is the start of the Champions League group stage.
Last season, Barca initially extended their stay at the Montjuic stadium until January 2025 (it would be further extended) arguing UEFA do not allow clubs to play in two different venues in games of the Champions League league phase.
The first European fixture Barcelona will play next season will be between September 16-18. If they did not start playing at home, it could drag on to the second game week of the group stage, which is set for between September 30-October 1.
(JOSEP LAGO/AFP via Getty Images)