Barça is perhaps the best example of a club where what is happening on the field serves as a hide and off for a much more complicated reality in the offices. Hold in many particularly poorly managed files, like Dani Olmo's registration in Liga, the management of the Catalan club continues to receive bad news and multiply the blunders. Joan Laporta has exhausted the patience quota of many supporters and even if the threat of a censure motion is still far away, the president of the Liga leader knows that he has no interest in missing on the hot files of the moment. Starting with the new Camp Nou, a subject that tense more than one from our Catalan neighbors.
The total renovation work of the Barcelona arena began at the end of the calendar year 2022. On the program: enlargement of the stands to be able to accommodate 105,000 fans against 99,000 so far, the installation of a retractable roof and the construction of a large commercial and leisure area in the vicinity of the stadium. The objective of Barça is not to build a simple football stadium, but a real place of life where to spend the afternoon, and where the supporters are not content only to come and watch the match for 2 hours before leaving at home. A particularly ambitious American project on which almost 2,000 workers work on a daily basis, but which has faced many obstacles from the start.
Delays from the start
The initial objective was to return to Camp Nou in the fall of 2024 and therefore inaugurate this “new” stadium this season. Barça was aware that the stadium was not going to be 100% operational and that it was not going to be able to fill it from the start (not all seats would be available), but the goal was that the Lamine Yamal band could celebrate its 125 years of history. Then, seeing all the complications that have followed, the club bet on the second part of the season, before getting used to the idea that it will be necessary to wait until the fall of 2025 so that Camp Nou can again welcome players and socios. It was not until the summer of 2026 that it will be completely complete, since the installation of the roof will not be done so soon. A delay of one year – and perhaps more – which is explained by substantial and repetitive concerns in the work, responsibility of the Limak company. Barça had also surprised everyone by choosing this Turkish company at the time, drawing the wrath of many experts in architecture and construction in Spain. And it is clear that the latter were right, while the management of Barça then explained that it was the only box that adapted to the Budget of Barça – about a billion euros – and which had assured that he could deliver the finished product in time.
Limak has indeed struggled to find qualified workers for certain complex tasks, while certain licenses issued by the city authorities to carry out various labors on the site took time to come. And that's not all, since there were even fights between workers, with videos who leaked on social networks and who required the intervention of the police. In this context, we understand better the delay, and Barça even had to make a request so that the workers can work 24 hours a day and limit the delay. In Catalonia, many regret an obvious lack of transparency on the part of Barça on this subject, with a club that is just content to reveal photos from time to time via its official media. For the moment, the seats have been installed in the stands, but the hardest thing remains to be done, since in addition to this famous roof, it is still necessary to set up the water and electricity systems of the stadium, a particularly complex task.
Barça loses money
Anyway, if the Barça fans are impatient at the idea of finding their stadium, it is because the Montjuïc stadium, where the team is currently evolving, is not unanimous. The stands are relatively far from the lawn, the atmosphere is quite bleak, and access to the stadium from the city of Barcelona is rather complicated. But if there are some who literally count on the remaining days before this first match in the new Camp Nou, it is indeed the leaders of the club. With a total cost slightly higher than billion euros, this completely renovated stage will be, according to management at least, a large source of income that will do good to the finances of the club. Each match played in Montjuic and not at Camp Nou represents an obvious loss of money for the club. We are talking about a stadium with a maximum crowd of 49,000 places, less than half of the old and the new Camp Nou, not to mention the absence of VIP stands, paid tours of the stadium and barça shops in the surroundings (in 2023, during a weekend in Clasico, the Camp Nou boutique had generated more than a million euros!). Income matchday ridiculous compared to what the club used, and in relation to what awaits it in the future.
Already in financially hard, Barcelonaus cannot even compensate with the ticket office or the sale of derivative products, one of the only areas where the club was really a reference. Barça, which was the first football club to have exceeded one billion euros in turnover, took a hit following the move to Montjuïc, with a turnover of 893 million euros in the 2023/2024 season. This season, everything indicates that it will be in these waters, and that it will start up once the return to Camp Nou validated. In total, the Liga leader hopes that these new infrastructures will bring him an additional 200 million euros per season. Suffice to say that there is an emergency so that the stadium is finished as soon as possible, under penalty that it is very expensive at Barça, but especially in Joan Laporta …
