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Barça return home: the new Spotify Camp Nou reopens this Saturday against Athletic with 45,401 spectators
The day Barcelona supporters had waited more than a year for now has a date and time. FC Barcelona will return to Spotify Camp Nou this Saturday, 22 November, at 16:15, for the league match against Athletic Club, ending a journey that began on 28 May 2023, when the stadium hosted its last match before the monumental refurbishment process.
Since then, the team has played its home matches at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys and, occasionally, at the Johan Cruyff. But the club now has the long-awaited 1B licence in its hands, allowing the stadium to reopen with a capacity of 45,401 spectators and also meeting UEFA’s technical requirements for playing in the Champions League.
The reopening has not been a simple process. Although Joan Laporta announced at the Ballon d’Or gala that Camp Nou was finished and that the Final Works Certificate was ready, the City Council did not grant the licence because of safety issues relating to accessibility and evacuation.
The first permit, the 1A licence, arrived on 17 October and authorised access for 25,991 fans. However, the club ruled out an immediate return because keeping the Estadi Olímpic — with greater capacity and already booked until February — was more economically viable.
Last week, Barça submitted the final documentation and, after a new round of inspections, the City Council gave the green light this Monday to the 1B licence, which activates the hoped-for return.
The return to the temple
The club put tickets on sale this Monday for members and will do so this Tuesday for the general public. Members will find the cheapest seats from €160, with the 20% discount applied. Of the available capacity, 24,800 seats are already reserved for season-ticket holders who maintained their support in Montjuïc.
If UEFA accepts the arrangement — it will have to relax the rule preventing a group stage from being played in two different stadiums — the first European match at the new Camp Nou would be on 9 December against Eintracht Frankfurt, the team responsible for one of the most painful nights for the culé supporters in 2022.
And what comes next
According to Joan Sentelles, the club’s operations director, ‘everything is going very well’, and Barça is confident of expanding capacity to 62,000 spectators before the end of the year. For the time being, Barcelona supporters already have what matters most: this Saturday, Camp Nou is home again. And it is so with its people.