Barcelona have announced that their opening home game of the season against Valencia will not be played at the Camp Nou – five days before it was due to take place.
The club had been given permission to play their first three fixtures away from home in order to complete the first phase of construction work at their stadium, and that was followed by the international break. But they were still unable to fulfil the requirements needed to get the permits in time, leaving a public deadline unmet for the third time having originally set an opening date of November 2024.
The match against Valencia will instead be played at the 6,000-seat Johan Cruyff Stadium at Barcelona’s Sant Joan Despí training ground to the west of the city.
Barcelona did not say when they expected to be able to play at the Camp Nou, with games coming up against Getafe on 21 September and Real Sociedad on 28 September. Their first home match in the Champions League is against Paris Saint-Germain on 1 October.
Inspectors from the local and football authorities had visited the site repeatedly and were in attendance again on Tuesday. But the club have not yet been granted the certificate of completed work which is a prerequisite to the granting of formal permission to occupy the stadium.
Barcelona cannot open the new Camp Nou to the public, even with part of the main stand and the south end operational and an initial capacity of 27,000.
A contingency agreement had been reached with the city council granting Barcelona access to the Olympic Stadium at Montjuic until February. Montjuic was their home last season and has been registered provisionally for the Champions League this year, although that can be changed should the Camp Nou be ready. A Post Malone concert at the stadium on Friday night prevented Barcelona from being able to use Montjuic this weekend, however.
A short statement, released just after 6.30pm on Tuesday, said Barcelona were “working intensely” to get the permits to be able to open the Camp Nou, and thanked supporters for their patience and understanding, but offered no further detail. The club said they would inform supporters about ticketing and access.
Barcelona’s last game at the old Camp Nou was in May 2023, with work beginning on the stadium’s refurbishments immediately afterwards, carried out by Turkish company Limak, who won the tender in part because it promised a quicker construction than other bids. The initial plan had been to be able to play at the refurbished stadium in front of 62,000 fans on the club’s 125-year anniversary last November.
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The initial plan had foreseen the stadium being opened in two phases: in the first phase there would be 62,000 seats available while construction continued. Upon completion of the second phase, the capacity would have reached its 105,000 total. That first phase was split subsequently into three phases: first they would allow 27,000 fans, then 45,000 and then 62,000.
Having missed that November deadline, Barcelona had hoped the opening was imminent, briefing that it would be ready in December, the new year, and then the spring. There had been optimism, outwardly at least, that they would play the clasico there in May, but it didn’t happen. This summer the club president, Joan Laporta, announced that Barcelona’s traditional pre-season curtain-raiser would be played at the Camp Nou on 10 August, under the slogan “we’re back”, but they were forced to play at the Johan Cruyff instead.
Work has been done at the Johan Cruyff Stadium, including setting up camera positions for video assistant referee. La Liga rules stipulate stadiums must have a capacity of at least 15,000, but an exception will be made in this case.
