Barcelona are back at Camp Nou. Well, kind of.
On Friday morning, Hansi Flick’s first team players trained under the Catalan sun, kicking a ball on the famous pitch for the first time since the end of the 2022-23 season. Barcelona had hoped to be there at the end of last year, but the date was shifted back four times.
The club are now hopeful of playing games from the end of this month starting with a La Liga match against Athletic Club in front of 45,000, but it has yet to be confirmed. Friday’s sell-out test event saw 23,000 fans watch the team and visit the place they will call home once again.
Fans were optimistic and happy. Players kicked balls into the stands at the end and the club president Joan Laporta posed for selfies with fans and signed autographs.
Average home attendances halved from 88,000 when the team moved to the city’s Olympic Stadium in 2023 and many season ticket holders didn’t make the move with them.
There was not space, people got out of the habit or baulked at the initial prices, which were later scaled down. The move to Montjuic was necessary but with a running track, it’s far from ideal for football. It’s also mostly uncovered, as was Camp Nou. But not for long as a roof will sit above the vast area giving it a very different look to now.
Camp Nou is one of football’s great cathedrals, but it had grown tired. Built in 1957 on what was then the outskirts of the Mediterranean port city, the stadium was continually expanded in a ground capacity arms race with Real Madrid. Both built so high that they became among the biggest stadiums in the world.
With 99,600 seats, Camp Nou was one of the biggest but it was not the best. The outside was shabby and barely touched since the last major expansion before the 1982 World Cup finals. As early as the 1990s, visiting players couldn’t believe how dated it all felt, especially beneath the stands.
Facilities for away fans high on the third tier were as poor as the prices were high, and there has been talk of a stadium rebuild for 20 years. Little was done.
A scale model of one version sat in the club’s reception, world class architects like Sir Norman Foster were courted, but the economics needed to be right. And the economics became a bigger story at Barcelona than anyone at the club would have wanted.
From Betis to Bilbao, Osasuna to Vigo, Spain is rebuilding or modernising its football stadiums. Madrid’s Bernabeu has been completed and expanded to hold 85,000 and can lay claim to being the best football stadium in the world. In Catalonia, they don't think very highly of the new steel clad exterior.
Barca fans hope their far bigger new home will be better, but, like Madrid fans they will have to play in a stadium which is part construction site for a year or two more.
Barcelona demolished the giant third tier of the old stadium and have built an even bigger one around the bottom two tiers, which have been reprofiled but remain similar to how they were.
Once finished, it will boast more higher priced executive seats, but given the club is owned by its supporters, regular fans will demand the same reasonable ticket prices they’ve always enjoyed.
Barca’s ticket policy, now copied by major clubs, is to look after the fans who go to every game but charge significantly more for once a season or once per lifetime visitors.
European away fans are also benefitting from price capping of €60 for the Champions League so you won’t see a repeat of the €119 that Manchester United fans were charged two years ago.
Camp Nou – officially Spotify Camp Nou since the club which once refused to tarnish its name with sponsors now needs outside money more than ever to pay back debts and compete at the top level of football - looks like it’ll be a success.
The club will stay in their home – and it still looks distinctively like Camp Nou with its vast sweeping tiers. A new metro stadium will also serve it and Barcelona hope that their finances will improve because of it.
