Barca on the move again as debt piles up

Barcelona are going to leave the Camp Nou again.  This was already part of their plans to finish ongoing rebuilding works at their iconic ground, but now we know — following comments from vice-president Ferran Olive at Saturday’s annual general assembly — exactly what they expect to happen next.

Olive said Barca would finish this 2026-27 season at the Camp Nou, but would then have to play away from the stadium for around half of 2027-28. He said the club hoped to come back in January 2028.

At that meeting, Barcelona also requested club members approve another big loan — taking on €510million (£437m; $584m) in further debt, €300m being earmarked for Camp Nou construction and €210m in further operational borrowings — in order to complete the works. This was voted through, meaning Barcelona’s total debts are now set to surge well past £2 billion and could hit €2.6bn in total, depending on repayment dates.

It takes the budget for the Espai Barca projevt which encompasses the Camp Nou rebuild, to €1.8billion, or triple what the works were costed at when it was first pitched in 2014. And even that sum won’t cover the full project; president Joan Laporta told club members on Saturday the extra €300m earmarked for the Camp Nou will not cover the building of the Palau Blaugrana, a venue which will house the club’s non-football teams.

Olive said work on the roof would “start progressively as soon as the team has played their last game of the season in May”.  He said the club have already reached an agreement with Barcelona’s city council to return to the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys, the 1992 Olympics venue which has a capacity of around 45,000 for football matches. Olive also said: “When we get back to the Camp Nou in January 2008, we expect to have a 95,000 seating capacity which will give us again this full potential to get the financial side of the club working at its best.”

From this, it sounds like the ground will still not quite be fully finished when Barca do go back. The total capacity of the new Camp Nou is planned to reach 105,000, up from the previous official total of 99,354. That was already the largest of any European football venue.

Now Barcelona expect to have the stadium finished and at full capacity by the start of the 2028-2029 season. Last week, UEFA announced it has chosen the Camp Nou as the 2029 Champions League final venue, set for June 2 that year.

On the subject of delays, Olive added: “We expect all the significant parts of the roof to be built by October or November 2027, but we don’t want to be struggling with timings again.”  Delays have already been costly for Barcelona. Playing away from the Camp Nou for longer than they planned has meant missing out on boosted revenues from the new ground, while the club also said it spent €17million on “operating expenses” and €24m in “investment linked to this stage”.

Barcelona’s Camp Nou rebuild costs have spiralled massively from the original plans approved 12 years ago.  Earlier this month, financial forecasts were shared with Barcelona club members. It pointed to new borrowing of around €300million for the rebuild and an increased budget of €1.8billion.  However, on Saturday, members were instead asked to approve a higher total of new borrowing — €510million. That amount spans both the Camp Nou works (€300m) and further operational debt (€210m) taken on by Barca, with the latter secured against future TV money.

The Espai project gobbles both cash and headlines, but taking on yet more non-project debt is of concern. The Espai debt, large as it is, is backed by the revenues which should eventually flow from a world-class home and has been taken out in service of building such a ground; the other debt was first taken out for liquidity purposes in 2021 and serves no such long-term purpose.

Non-Espai debt comprised €597million of Barca’s total €1.840bn in borrowings at the end of June 2026, so the extra €210m will take those borrowings beyond €800m.   Laporta told members on Saturday the club were looking for solutions but assured them it would not further raise a level of debt which already stands way out in front as football’s largest.