Barcelona’s plan all year has been to return to Spotify Camp Nou at the earliest with the target being a homecoming before the end of the year.
The initial forecast, however, now appears to have been overly optimistic as the work in the stadium is far from enough to facilitate a return.
In fact, Barcelona are already planning their next games at Montjuic with Camp Nou’s reopening postponed.
As relayed by MARCA in a recent update, the Catalans will not return to their primary stadium until February at least.
There is absolutely no chance to return before that date because the club have already begun selling tickets for Barcelona’s clash against Atalanta in Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys which will be held on January 29th.
Delay in progress
Barcelona are clear that they will only return to Spotify Camp Nou when they are sure beyond doubt that it can accommodate them permanently.
The Blaugrana want to avoid managing two venues and thus prefer to wait until satisfactory progress has been made.
The best-case scenario, as it stands, is that the Catalan heavyweights celebrate their homecoming on matchday 22 of La Liga against Alaves on the first or second of February.
There are, however, rumours of a possible delay until March as well and the club are said to have contacted the authorities at Montjuic over continuing at the stadium until the end of March.
It thus remains to be seen when the stadium is finally ready for its unveiling, but it is certainly not in the near future.