Barcelona confirm Athletic Club match will mark Camp Nou return

The Catalab club will finally return to its home stadium after two years.

After over two years playing away from its home stadium, Barcelona are scheduled to play Athletic Bilbao in its renovated Camp Nou stadium on November 22 in LaLiga, the team said on Monday.

The Catalan powerhouse have been compelled to play elsewhere since the stadium shut at the end of the 2022–2023 season, primarily at the Olympic Stadium on the city’s Montjuic hill.

After a 1.5 billion euro ($1.75 billion) makeover marred by construction upheaval, Camp Nou is reopening a year later than planned due to a number of delays.

Camp Nou to run at 45,401 capacity for now

When the upper deck is finished, there will be room for 105,000 people. Barcelona plans to unveil the stadium with an interim seating capacity of 45,401 for now.

As an experimental event for the stadium’s reopening, they let 23,000 spectators observe a training session earlier in November.

Additionally, Barcelona are trying to get permission from UEFA to host Eintracht Frankfurt in the UEFA Champions League on December 9 at Camp Nou.

Due to safety concerns, the Spanish champions were unable to obtain the necessary permit for Camp Nou, forcing them to play two games at its 6,000-seat Johan Cruyff training facility stadium in the early stages of the season. Built in 1957, the former version of Camp Nou could accommodate 99,000 people.

The renovated stadium will include a roof, which Barcelona intend to construct in the summer of 2027—a year later than the work was originally scheduled to be finished.

Barcelona might have made a comeback in October, but the Phase 1A license at the time restricted capacity to 25,991, which the club considered to be inadequate financially. The maximum number of spectators is 45,401, thanks to the new Phase 1B license.

According to Barcelona, they are still in the process of obtaining the Phase 1C license, which would permit operations in the north goal area.

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