Joan Laporta has secured permission from the local authorities to begin work on the new Camp Nou.
Barcelona’s President met with Ada Colau, mayor of Barcelona, to present the details of the Espai Barca project today and was given the green light to start work.
The club put out a press release on Thursday confirming this and providing a timeline for the works, beginning in June. Primarily work will begin on the first two tiers of the stadium this summer and continue throughout the 2022-23 season, as the club looks to update the technological infrastructure. Once the new roof is installed, solar panels will also coat the top of the stadium in an effort to make the stadium more eco-friendly.
Then the following season, 2023-24, will see the third tier of Camp Nou demolished and then rebuilt. During that season the team will play at the Estadi Lluis Companys. The old Olympic stadium lies atop the Montjuic hill, around half an hour from Camp Nou and hold a capacity of 55,926.
The team will return to Camp Nou in 2024 but works will continue, in a similar form to the current Santiago Bernabeu renovations, until a final date of 2026.
During those four years the area around Camp Nou, forming part of the Espai Barca or ‘Barca Space’, will undergo a remodelling too.
Barcelona did note that these were provisional dates and somewhat subject to the rising cost of materials. Yet the club seems to finally be underway with the project, which was first being mooted after Joan Laporta left office the first time. The initial upheaval should eventually provide the club with a modernised image and extra revenue streams too.
