Catalonia-Palestine match now set: it will be played at Montjuïc

BarcelonaThe Catalonia-Palestine match scheduled for Tuesday, November 18 (6:30 p.m.) has been resolved: after all parties involved reached an agreement, the match will be played where planned. the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium. Barça will act as the operator, and the costs associated with its organization will be covered by the Barcelona City Council, which will provide the stadium for the match; the Catalan Government's Department of Sports; and the Act x Palestine platform, which is promoting the initiative. The parties involved in organizing the Catalonia-Palestine match (the Catalan Government, the Barcelona City Council, the Catalan Football Federation, Barça, and Act x Palestine) met this morning at the Department of Sports to finalize the details and reach an agreement. The main point of contention was reducing the budget for playing the match at Montjuïc, which the FCF initially estimated at "more than 600,000 euros." According to information obtained by ARA, the meeting served to reduce the budget, a task that is still being worked on in some aspects, and to determine the costs that each party will bear. It has been crucial that the City Council, through Barcelona de Servicios Municipales, the company that manages the Lluís Companys Stadium, provides the stadium free of charge, the rental of which is approximately €180,000 plus taxes for each match.

The other major costs lie in the operational aspects of the match (service staff, security personnel, medical personnel, etc.), which make it possible to play a match at Montjuïc. This service will be provided by Barça and has an initial cost of around €200,000, which still needs to be finalized. The club has offered to handle the operations itself, but will charge whatever price this entails. The other major part of the budget currently being negotiated is the cost of covering all the Barça and sponsor logos for the Catalunya-Palestina match and then re-displaying them for Barça's next match. This is handled by an external company, and although the club—which must bear this cost, for example, when switching from a league match to a Champions League game—estimates it at between €50,000 and €60,000, the budget presented for this task—with an external company—was more than €0.

It remains to be decided who will cover these costs, whether the public authorities or the match organizers. Sources close to Act x Palestine explained to ARA that they could cover a figure close to €150,000 because "the goal is for the match to be played at Montjuïc." However, this money will come from ticket sales; therefore, they expect the final amount they have to cover to be lower because "the objective is to raise as much money as possible to donate to NGOs working in Palestine."