Barca’s Camp Nou return held up again by licence issue

Barcelona must wait to return to their renovated Camp Nou home after the city council turned down their request for an essential permit on Tuesday.

The Spanish champions were hoping to host Real Sociedad there on Sunday in La Liga with a reduced capacity crowd of 27,000.

The Catalan giants will instead hold the game at the Olympic stadium on the city’s Montjuic hill, where they played for the previous two seasons during works at Camp Nou.

“The club continues to work on obtaining the necessary administrative permits for the opening of Spotify Camp Nou in the coming weeks,” said Barcelona in a statement.

“Currently, the club is working on the new amendments that the council has shared today.”

The city’s fire department said there were problems with evacuation routes, among other safety issues.

“We share the club’s desire to return as soon as possible, but this city council must guarantee the safety of everyone who wants to go to the stadium — this is the priority,” said Laia Bonet, Barcelona’s deputy mayor.

“We will have maximum collaboration with the club so that they can resolve the outstanding issues.

“We will not take a month or a minute longer than necessary to grant the initial occupancy license when we have (all we need).”

“Just because it’s not finished, doesn’t mean it’s not safe,” Barcelona’s operations director Joan Sentelles told reporters earlier Tuesday during a tour of the stadium.

He also said the roof will be put on the stadium in the summer of 2027, a year later than originally planned. The stadium was supposed to reopen in November 2024 but the date has been pushed back several times.

Hansi Flick’s side played away for the first three weeks of the season to provide time to get the stadium ready to be reopened.

They then hosted Valencia and Getafe at the 6,000-capacity Johan Cruyff stadium beside their training ground, still waiting for permission to reopen Camp Nou.

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