Club will play their home fixtures at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys if delays extend past September
Barcelona have set up a backup plan to cover delays to a Camp Nou return, after the club signed an agreement guaranteeing use of the Olympic Stadium at Montjuic until the end of February.
The deal, concluded with Barcelona de Serveis Municipals (BSM), ensures that Montjuic will remain available to the club for all of their Champions League group stage matches.
According to Uefa rules, a club must stage all group home fixtures at the same ground, which means that Barcelona have until mid-September, the start of the league phase, to decide where they will play their Champions League home fixtures.
If Camp Nou is not ready by then, the club would have to choose a different ground and play there until February, which made securing Montjuic essential.
Barcelona have organised a return to Camp Nou in stages this season but it has been frustrated by delays due to the extent of the renovations. The club had planned to play its first match at the renovated stadium this month in the traditional Joan Gamper Trophy, played against Como this year.
However, the city council withheld a Licence of First Occupancy after the stadium failed to meet the requirements. Instead, the fixture against Como was played at the Estadi Johan Cruyff.
Club president Joan Laporta has continued to stress that returning to Camp Nou is a priority and Barcelona are working hard to achieve that, but securing Montjuic provides cover should work on the stadium drag on past September.
The only fixture not included in the agreement with BSM is Barcelona’s home league fixture with Valencia on 13 or 14 September, which is also the club’s first home fixture of the season. Montjuic will be unavailable then due to a concert that would leave the pitch unusable.
Barcelona would have to find another suitable location for the fixture, either at Camp Nou behind closed doors, or at another La Liga-approved venue.
