El Clásico to be played to a full house

Article posted by Coliseum, October 15^th, 2021

Image: MJR Group Ltd./Coliseum

This piece of information is music to the ears for the Spanish professional football club FC Barcelona – the authorities in Catalonia (Spain) relaxed the COVID-19 restrictions on October 12^th.

The ‘kicker’ stated that due to the above decision, the forthcoming El Clásico match can take place in front of 99,000 fans.

Futbol Club Barcelona, commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça, is a Spanish professional football club based in Barcelona (Spain), which competes in LaLiga, the top flight of Spanish football.

The 99,354-capacity Camp Nou is a football stadium in Barcelona, Spain. It opened in 1957 and has been the home stadium of FC Barcelona since its completion.

El Clásico is the name given to any football match between Spanish football clubs Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. El Clásico is considered to be one of the biggest football matches in club football other than the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League Final.

LaLiga President Javier Tebas has announced that the first El Clásico of the 2021-2022 seasons between Barcelona and Real Madrid will be played on October 24^th, with kick-off scheduled for 16:15 CET. This first meeting between the two teams will be played at the Camp Nou.

Said Catalan Regional President Pere Aragones, “We are finally returning to 100 percent capacity after a year and a half.”

The ‘kicker’ further stated that in the largest stadium in Europe, an occupancy rate of 60 percent was recently allowed.

With the above development, the top-flight FC Barcelona can count on higher income from ticket sales again. The timing is just right, because Barça have three home games lined up within a week: On October 17^th, they play against the LaLiga team Valencia CF, on October 20^th in the Champions League against the Ukrainian professional football club Dinamo Kiev, and on October 24^th, the El Clásico fixture against the Spanish professional football club Real Madrid.

The Camp Nou is to be rebuilt – the Espai Barça development plan goes well beyond modernization and reconstruction of FC Barcelona’s home venue Camp Nou. In addition to increasing the capacity of the current stadium to 105,000 from circa 99,000 and completely revamping the current structure of the Camp Nou, the Espai Barça project entails building a new Palau Blaugrana with a capacity of 15,000, an additional court with a capacity of 2,000, an ice rink, a new social area, a new commercial area, revamped club offices, La Masía (read FC Barcelona’s youth academy), and an additional 5,000 parking spots.

This ambitious initiative has been in work for several years and is scheduled to be ready for the 2024-2025 seasons. In April 2014, Espai Barça was approved by the club’s members with a budget of $700 million.

Once the restructuring work is through, the Barça home will be in a position to hold 110,000 spectators.

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