April 29 – FC Barcelona have been given the green light by local authorities to begin work on redeveloping the Nou Camp, with the renovation expected to finish in the 2025-26 season.
The massive overhauls of Europe’s largest stadium will force Barcelona to play the 2023-24 season at the Olympic Stadium of city rivals Espanyol. Work will get underway this summer, ensuring that Barcelona will still enjoy home advantage next season before the third tier of the Nou Camp is demolished.
The redevelopment of the stadium has been delayed multiple times. In 2007, British architect Norman Forster presented plans to renovate the stadium and expand its capacity to 105,000 at an estimated cost of €250 million. However, due to the 2008 financial crisis, the plans were postponed. In 2014, Barcelona again proposed plans to refurbish the stadium, with construction expected to finish in 2021.
Today, the club wants to increase Nou Camp’s capacity to 110,000 as well as upgrade the exterior of the stadium and the surrounding areas in a project that is budgeted at no more than €1.5 billion. In a statement, FC Barcelona said that arranging the funding is in progress.
Barcelona has secured a loan from Goldman Sachs to fund the construction while Spotify has also agreed to pay a reported €250 million for the naming rights of the stadium, which from July will be known as the ‘Spotify Nou Camp’.
The stadium was inaugurated in 1957 and played host to the 1982 World Cup. In 1999, Manchester United defeated Bayern Munich 2-1 with a last-minute winner from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the Champions League final at Nou Camp.
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