Barcelona to play away from Camp Nou throughout stadium overhaul

Barcelona will play at one other stadium for as much as a yr when the membership begins its deliberate modernization of Camp Nou stadium, president Joan Laporta mentioned Friday.
Laporta mentioned that he desires to start the long-delayed overhaul of Camp Nou in the summertime of 2022. He added that the work will final three to 4 years, however that the workforce will solely want to seek out one other residence for a most of 12 months.
“We are considering different possibilities, but the strongest candidate is the Johan Cruyff Stadium,” Laporta advised Catalan radio Rac1 on Friday.
Johan Cruyff Stadium is the place the ladies’s workforce performs and kinds a part of the membership’s coaching advanced on the outskirts of Barcelona.
With a capability to seat solely 6,000 spectators, Laporta mentioned the membership desires to extend that to 50,000 if the boys’s workforce performs there.
Another possibility, Laporta mentioned, can be for the workforce to play on the metropolis’s Montjuic Stadium. The municipal facility hosted the opening ceremonies of the 1992 Summer Olympics and was residence to Barcelona rival Espanyol for a number of years.
Camp Nou is already Europe’s largest soccer stadium with 99,000 seats. The membership desires to extend its capability to 110,000 whereas additionally refurbishing its surrounding space, which features a pavilion for the membership’s different sports activities, the museum and shops.
To finance the operation, Barcelona is in talks with Goldman Sachs for the funding financial institution to mortgage the cash-strapped membership 1.5 billion euros ($1.74 billion). The financing plan must win a vote by the membership’s members.
Goldman Sachs was closely concerned within the financing of Tottenham’s new stadium.
Laporta inherited a membership close to chapter when he received elections in March. He had additionally led the membership from 2003-10.
“(The new Camp Nou) is fundamental for the viability of the club and its immediate future,” Laporta mentioned. “The impact it will have for Barça is critical so that we can compete with our competitors who have already done what is needed.”
Real Madrid took benefit of final yr’s pandemic lockdown, when no followers might attend matches in Spain, to spruce up its Santiago Bernabéu.
Barcelona’s plans to redo Camp Nou have met with a number of delays over the previous decade.