Barcelona say goodbye to the Camp Nou, not knowing for sure when they’ll return

Just before 11pm local time, more than two hours after the final whistle in Barcelona’s 3-0 La Liga victory against Real Mallorca, the lights went out at the old Camp Nou.

Barcelona’s home since September 1957 will be partially demolished in the coming weeks, and the team will play across the city at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys while it is redeveloped.

“Full of History. Full of Future” (‘Ple d’historia. Ple de futur’) was the tagline for a well-planned and choreographed farewell to the old concrete bowl on Sunday night, with tearful goodbyes for long-serving club servants Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, and the club’s deep connection to their Catalan fanbase underscored.

The new stadium will be the centrepiece of a spectacular €1.5billion-plus (£1.3bn; $1.6bn) Espai Barca project, which will open up the ground to its surroundings and boasts the latest in technology and sustainability.

The question mostly avoided on an emotional night in the Catalan capital was just how long it will be before that new stadium is ready for the team to return.

The Camp Nou has been Europe’s biggest football stadium for most of the last half-century. It hosted games at the 1964 European Championship and 1982 World Cup, and staged the 1992 Olympic Games football final, which a Spain side including Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique won. Two European Cup/Champions League finals have been played there, most recently Manchester United’s dramatic “Football… bloody hell” victory over Bayern Munich in 1999.

UEFA has not been choosing it for showpiece occasions for a while, however, as decades of neglect saw it fall well behind peer stadiums around the continent which are packed with lucrative VIP boxes. Plans for a rebuild were first announced during Joan Laporta’s first term as president over two decades ago, but institutional and financial issues have kept delaying the project.

With €1.45billion in financing finally secured last month, and despite all the setbacks and internal turmoil, the board are now pushing ahead as quickly as possible. Initial demolition has already taken place around the site, with the giant scoreboard behind the south goal removed last September, and more preparatory work done in November and December when club football was paused for the playing of the World Cup in Qatar.

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On Sunday afternoon, as the sun beat down on the Catalan capital, the stadium gates were open two hours before the 7pm kick-off. As The Athletic entered at around half-past five, there were lines of fans queuing to enter the gift shop, where they could sign a huge commemorative photo and have pictures taken with historical trophies won including the 1992 European Cup and 2022-23 La Liga.

An emotional Sunday in Barçaville. #FinsAviatSCN pic.twitter.com/wqK2kCOsyA

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) May 28, 2023

Barcelona also included their global fanbase in marking the occasion. An online poll chose Lionel Messi’s slalom solo effort against Getafe in 2007 as the best goal, the 6-1 Champions League quarter-final second-leg comeback against Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 as the greatest game, and last weekend’s party to celebrate the 2022-23 title as the ‘best moment’ of the stadium’s near 66-year history.

G⚽️AL OF THE DAY
🐐 Nine years ago, Messi won his fourth Ballon d’Or pic.twitter.com/3D8mf8FceP

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) January 7, 2022

The recency bias in that online vote was countered by older socios inside the stadium hearing again the voice of Manel Vich, the club’s legendary stadium announcer from 1956 to 2016, calling out the line-up of the very first game in the stadium — a 6-1 La Liga win over now fifth-tier Real Jaen.

As the final Barcelona starting XI to play at the old stadium took to the pitch, the club anthem, with its opening line of ‘Tots al camp’ (“Everyone to the stadium”) was sung a cappella by the fans.

Goosebumps.#BarçaMallorca #FinsAviatSCN pic.twitter.com/R8EeUNyixN

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) May 28, 2023

The festival atmosphere continued as Ansu Fati put Barcelona ahead after just 48 seconds. When Mallorca winger Amath Ndiaye was sent off 14 minutes in, it basically ended the contest, and Fati soon made it 2-0. The second half was fun for the vast majority of the 88,775 supporters at the stadium — the sixth-highest attendance of a season which has seen the best average Camp Nou crowds of the 21st century at 83,205.

More fans coming through the turnstiles than even when Messi, now-Barceloan coach Xavi and Andres Iniesta were in their Europe-conquering pomp can be taken as evidence of how Laporta’s charisma (and financial lever-pulling) has really enthused the fanbase, successfully attracting both local socios (as club members are known) and visitors from around the world.

(Photo: Joan Valls/Urbanandsport /NurPhoto via Getty Images)

After Gavi’s 70th-minute strike rounded off the scoring, Xavi used late substitutions to ensure Alba and Busquets could each get an emotional goodbye moment with the crowd.

There were loud chants of ‘Champions, champions’, before the final whistle which brought more huge cheers. The stadium screens then showed a compilation video of great Camp Nou moments, including goals by Ladislao Kubala, Johan Cruyff, Hristo Stoichkov Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto’o, and gave a few more opportunities for the crowd to chant Messi’s name, amid hopes that maybe, just maybe, the beloved Argentinian might return next season after two years with Paris Saint-Germain to help make their exile at Montjuic easier for everyone to get through.

👋🏟️ #FinsAviatSCN pic.twitter.com/hKKuLLxAcA

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) May 28, 2023

The sentimentality continued into a sweet video showing a very young Busquets and Alba, before the pair gave tearful speeches to the crowd, including a mention for the club’s former coach Tito Vilanova, who died of cancer in 2014 aged just 45. Then came the reading of a poem written by Josep Maria de Sagarra to mark the stadium’s opening back in 1957, a traditional Catalan sardana dance around the centre circle by local groups, and the symbolic handing over of a team flag from one of their oldest socios to two young fans.

Spain’s locally-born 2003 Eurovision contestant Beth sang a reworking of a traditional parting song often sung in Catalonia, which is itself a version of Auld Lang Syne.

The celebrations ended with a spectacular fireworks display over the stadium before the crowd melted out into the Les Corts neighbourhood which has been Barcelona’s home for over a century.

The focus on nostalgia was a wise PR move, considering all the uncertainty over the future.

Then-club president Josep Maria Bartomeu’s previous Camp Nou rebuild plan used more of the existing stadium structure, so in theory, games could have continued to be played there while work went on. Successor Laporta’s more ambitious project means that is impossible — as Turkish builders Limak and its partners require 18 months at least when no games can be played.

It is in everyone’s interests to get back to the stadium as soon as possible, given that it is estimated playing at the smaller Montjuic will cost Barca €90million a year, including lost revenues. When announcing financing for the rebuild had been secured, Laporta said: “We have commitments to be back at the Camp Nou for the club’s 125th birthday.”

That landmark date is November 29 next year, but predictions have already begun to slide. “On our return in December 2024, assuming no unforeseen circumstances, we will have the best stadium in the world,” Laporta said during title celebrations last week.

Given how the project has advanced over the last two decades, and all the turmoil under Laporta’s stewardship, further setbacks and delays cannot be ruled out.

Upping sticks to the 55,000-capacity athletics stadium, which was home to the 1992 Olympic Games, is not at all popular among local socios. Most were not at all excited about trekking across the city, even before ticket prices for 2023-24 were set significantly higher than this season’s to help offset the costs of the move.

Fans packed in for the old Camp Nou’s farewell game (Photo: Pau Barrena/AFP via Getty Images)

So few socios have renewed their season tickets so far that the club announced a 50 per cent cut to the initial prices on Thursday. But still, there is a lot of apathy about the move among multiple socios The Athletic has spoken with. Expected access problems to Montjuic are also a factor in many fans preferring to just stay at home next season and watch the games on TV instead.

The last Camp Nou stadium tour for some time took place on Friday, but fans and visitors will still be welcomed to the site. A new, temporary, mostly audio-visual museum is opening next week in the ‘Ice Palace’ rink, where the club’s ice-hockey team usually play.

The club’s main gift shop at the stadium will remain open through the renovation work — another sign Barcelona need every euro they can get. Already this week, special shirts with that ‘Ple d’historia. Ple de futur’ slogan have been on sale; yours for only €109.99 — plus delivery.

To commemorate the occasion.
💙❤️ #FinsAviatSCN pic.twitter.com/emXiRs3ndB

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) May 28, 2023

Plans have also been announced to sell off the old stadium’s seats, sections of the turf and other memorabilia. That meant that the club’s security personnel were ‘on guard’ on Sunday evening to prevent socios — or anybody else — trying to take home any free souvenirs, although some fans did manage to leave with signs that had been torn from the walls.

Monday morning saw Laporta, Xavi and Busquets back at the Camp Nou, for a symbolic placing of the first stone of the new south stand. Demolition will accelerate this week, even if all the required permits and licenses for the full rebuild have yet to be granted by the city authorities.

As the lights went out on Sunday night, the last fans drifted past the statues of Kubala and Cruyff by the stadium, with the words of the reworked Catalan version of that old Scottish farewell song still hanging in the air.

“It’s the hour, old friend to say goodbye,” it says. “But this is not a goodbye for always, just for an instant. We will wait faithfully for your triumphant return.”

As the nostalgia around the old Camp Nou fades, Barcelona’s socios now have a painful exile to get through, before that triumphant return, whenever it comes.

(Top photo: David Ramos/Getty Images)