Renewal time: On the importance of renovating the Camp Nou for Barcelona | Israel Hayom

The night of May 28, 2023 will go down in Barcelona's history not only because of the emotional farewell to two of its greatest players, Sergi Busquets and Jordi Alba and perhaps of the unfulfilled future star Ansu Fati who also scored twice against Mallorca, but also because of the farewell to the Camp Nou. One of the most famous places in Spain will become a construction site, but this is not the end but a necessary renewal.

After hosting 1676 matches in 66 consecutive seasons with a 74.5% win rate for Barca, Europe's largest stadium by capacity is closing its doors for a major renovation. Barring any surprises and delays, in November 2024, when the club celebrates its 125th anniversary, the Cullers will be able to enjoy a more modern and more contemporary home.

At this time, Xavi's team will play at the Olympic Stadium in Montjuïc (Mount of the Jews) which has only 55,000 seats, almost 6,000 of which were not slated for sale due to difficulty seeing the grass. That is half the quota of the Camp Nou today, when in 1982 it even reached 120,000. Besides, getting there is more difficult and less convenient than the Camp Nou, which is located in a central area of Barcelona. This is one of the main reasons, of course not the only one, that President Jean Laporta is very interested in the return of Leo Messi. One of the best players in the history of football will be an incentive full of romance for people to ascend to the "Mount of the Jews" and especially the tourists. Beyond his professional contribution, Messi will bring money and aura to a club that won the title this year but has experienced many scandals in recent years and is mainly suffering from the worst financial crisis in its history.

Barca fans. A year and a half of longing, photo: AFP

The Camp Nou, inaugurated on September 24, 1957, saw players of historic size such as Kubla, Cruyff, Maradona, Romario, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Messi. Also, it has hosted concerts by the greatest singers and I don't mean the actors I just mentioned, but Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson or Julio Iglesias. The temple of football really became such when the Pope held a folk mass there in '82. The year Camp Nou opened the World Cup in Spain, a country that ten years later on the same field, celebrated its first Olympic gold.

Camp Nou, of course, has become over the years the biggest symbol of the Catalan movement vis-à-vis the central government, one of whose symbols was Real Madrid. Although this year she added sponsor Spotify in the name, on the field she continued to keep the music of the past. A brief visit would have shown that although there was still a place of inspiration and admiration for anyone arriving for the first time, the Camp Nou had aged and requested a massive refurbishment.

Fireworks outside Camp Nou, yesterday, Photo: Getty Images

"The Camp Nou is the stadium of our lives," said Laporta, who while managing the temporary home transfer must also fight against the club's huge debts. The main goal is to reduce €200 million from expenses in order to comply with the Fair Play rules with the league, to register the new contracts of current and future players - Ronald Araujo and Gavi and especially to bring in Messi. Not an easy task. The club estimates that Montjuïc's rental will be around €15-20 million, but it is clear to everyone that the club will lose a lot of money in terms of ticket sales.

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Laporta believes the inconvenience for the fans is worth it, because, according to him, "Camp Nou will be the best stadium in the world. There will be a roof all over the pitch except for the grass and no fan will get wet if it rains." The new Camp Nou, with 105,000 spectators, will be the beating heart of the city's biggest sporting and entertainment project. 20 investors have put €145 million into a project that includes, among other things, a new "paleo" for basketball and handball, office buildings and a hotel. Since every euro is important for the club, subscribers who want to take home a souvenir like chairs of the pitch before it is demolished will have to pay. In 1957, Paraguayan Martínez scored the first goal in a stadium that then looked like a wonder in Barcelona, which was a very different city from today. Gavi, only 18, scored the last before the bulldozers started working.

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