Heraldo de Madrid - Barca's planned Camp Nou return in August scrapped

The Catalan giants had planned to play a friendly match on August 10 as the first game in their stadium after two years of construction work, but blamed difficulty in obtaining a license to partially open the stadium for their decision.

"Barcelona informs that the first match back at the Spotify Camp Nou has been suspended," said the club in a statement.

"Because of the magnitude of the work done it was impossible to meet all the requirements demanded by the regulations governing the granting of the first occupancy license, despite the club's willingness to open Spotify Camp Nou in sections."

The first match at the Camp Nou is now set to be the La Liga game against Valencia on September 13 or 14, with Barca's first three league matches away from home.

However Barcelona did not state whether they can guarantee they will be able to open the stadium for the fixture, or potentially a home Champions League tie before then.

Barca said the friendly they had planned, reported to be against Italian side Como, will take place instead at the Johan Cruyff stadium beside their training ground.

Barcelona have played at the Olympic Stadium on the city's Montjuic hill over the past two seasons during the development at the Camp Nou.

The club initially planned to return to the Camp Nou in November 2024 to mark the club's 125th anniversary but the stadium opening has been repeatedly delayed.

Capacity at the Camp Nou will be around 60,000 until works are eventually completed, planned to be next summer, with the stadium expanded to 105,000 seats.

Barcelona are estimated to be paying 1.5 billion euros ($1.75 billion) for the Camp Nou rebuild project.

G.Campos--HdM