The small print of Barça's new exile in Montjuïc

BarcelonaRemodeling the Camp Nou from top to bottom was not only aimed at repairing possible damage to a stadium built in 1957. The world of football has changed a lot since then and stadiums are no longer just meeting points where one goes to watch a match every two weeks. They are business spaces open 365 days a year and are commercially exploited beyond competition. UEFA and FIFA have also modified their regulations. Football can be played almost anywhere as long as the pitch has the regulation dimensions. But the big tournaments, the big finals, are reserved for the best stadiums. And the old Camp Nou had become obsolete.

The new stadium roof, which will shelter the 104,000 spectators – until now, the canopy only covered part of the grandstand area – will be one of the differentiating features of this renovated Camp Nou. One more attribute that will make it enter the select club of five-star venues, and which positions it as a strong candidate to host the 2029 Champions League final and, who knows, also the 2030 World Cup final. But for this to be possible, this great engineering work, which has colossal dimensions and has been delayed year after year, partly due to accumulated delays, but also due to the complexity of a process that will involve a second exile to Montjuïc.

On a sporting level, it can be debated whether the two and a half years that Barça spent playing at the Estadi Lluís Companys had a positive or negative balance. However, in terms of treasury, it is indisputable that the economic consequences were disastrous for a club that stopped earning around 100 million per season. With the numbers in hand, it is not surprising that Joan Laporta's board and the Espai Barça managers tried, with tooth and nail, to avoid a second stay in Montjuïc. But it has been impossible. Pending official confirmation, the club will play there for the first few months of the 2027/28 season while the roof is being installed at the Camp Nou. For now, it has already booked the stadium until December.

In the initial drafts, the installation of this cover was planned for the summer of 2025, but the proposal was immediately discarded because at those dates the skeleton of the third tier would have barely been installed. Then this summer of 2026 was considered, taking advantage of the fact that there is an extra week of rest between league and league for the World Cup. That was also not possible. So the new date is summer 2027. And now, it seems that the third time will be the definitive one.

Barça, which has architect Lluís Moya as its main executive, an eminence in the world of structural calculation, has been working on this roof for a long time. The process has been decided for a long time: the pieces are brought to Camp Nou, spread out on the grass, and assembled. Then this is connected wheel giant in the compression ring of the third tier through very thick steel cables and, finally, the cables are tensioned so that the wheel keep rising until reaching its final point. The problem? The execution time.

The construction of the roof can take up to seven months

Initially, Barça spoke of only three months to carry out the big lift, but over time the club rectified and increased the forecast to four and a half months. An summer, therefore, was not enough and that's why the idea of asking La Liga to be able to play the last three league matches away from home and start the next one, also, with the first three matches away came up. With this, those four and a half months of margin could be gained – considering that there is also an international break –. However, even then it was not guaranteed to finish on time. That's why the least risky solution was not to play with the calendar and rent Montjuïc again for a few months.

Official sources believe that a maximum of five months will be enough to finish the installation, but as ARA has learned, engineers are more conservative and say seven. Therefore, the initial objective of returning in November seems very complicated, so consulted sources believe that it will not be possible to play at Camp Nou again until Christmas 2027 or perhaps a little later. "It must be taken into account that the grass becomes unusable, that chairs have to be dismantled... it's not just the structure of the roof, it's everything that it entails additionally". Once in place, it will need to be waterproofed, but this step should be possible to do between matches.

The direct consequence of this new stay in Montjuïc is economic. Revenue will plummet and, to make matters worse, the rent to BSM, the company that manages the Olympic Ring facilities, will have to be paid again. In recent years, Barça paid an average of 900,000 euros per month, money that also included security reinforcement. This money will have a direct impact on the 27/28 budget and, therefore, will limit the club's fair play. That's why the board is in such a hurry to sign now, anticipating that in a year it will be impossible for them.

Furthermore, the club will not be able to exploit the catering offer and will have very limited capacity for merchandising revenue. They will also have to take charge again of the installation of the pitch and all the equipment – VAR technology, entrance turnstiles... – that were dismantled at the time. And one last problem, and not a minor one: deciding the distribution of season tickets among the social mass. It should be taken into account that there are still thousands of members on leave and, above all, someone else will have to be left out: there is not enough room for everyone who has reserved a seat for this season at the Camp Nou. The third tier, the roof and the theskywalk that will be installed afterwards will be a very important source of income in the future. But to get there, a second journey through the desert will be necessary.