Barcelona raises €300m bond for Camp Nou rebuild, project now at €1.8bn

A €300m bond to finish the stadium

FC Barcelona has completed a €300m bond issue to pay for the remaining work on the Spotify Camp Nou. Goldman Sachs acted as the sole issuing agent and helped place the bonds with investors, while the Spanish securities regulator CNMV approved the operation. The interest rate was not made public. In a statement dated 13 November, the club said the funding will allow progress on the stadium, which it called the centrepiece of Espai Barça.

“Barcelona has finalised a €300m bond issue for use on the completion of the refurbishment of the Spotify Camp Nou after receiving approval from the CNMV.”

The club also raised €210m of additional operational borrowing. Both amounts were part of the €510m in new debt that members approved at the September annual general assembly, and the stadium portion sits within the wider Espai Barça project.

Budget and funding history

The Espai Barça budget now stands at €1.8bn, a figure that excludes the planned new Palau Blaugrana venue for the club's other sports teams. The project began in 2014, when members approved a €600m budget for refurbishing and extending the stadium while Josep Maria Bartomeu was club president. Those works were slated for May 2017 to March 2021 but never advanced, and an €815m project was almost ready when Bartomeu left in autumn 2020. After Joan Laporta returned as president in March 2021, the inherited plan was scrapped, and members approved a revised budget of up to €1.5bn in December 2021. Funding of €1.45bn was arranged through Goldman Sachs in April 2023, and total club debt, which a September report put above €2bn, could reach €2.6bn depending on repayment dates.

2014 approved budget600

Project ready when Bartomeu left (autumn 2020)815

Revised budget approved December 2021 (up to)1,500

Espai Barça budget, November 20261,800

2014 approved budget

600 €m

Project ready when Bartomeu left (autumn 2020)

815 €m

Revised budget approved December 2021 (up to)

1500 €m

Espai Barça budget, November 2026

1800 €m

Data from the article text

Completion slips to 2028/29

Barcelona said in 2023 that the stadium would be fully built by summer 2026, but the finish date has since moved to the 2028/29 season. The ground is already in use for matches, though only a limited number of seats is available. Estimates of the finished capacity differ: one report gives about 105,000, while another says more than 104,000. The club expects larger revenues from expanded premium and hospitality areas once the work is done. UEFA announced in September 2026 that the 2029 Champions League final will be played at Spotify Camp Nou, and the rebuild is due to be completed before that match.

World Cup 2030 bid

Camp Nou hopes to host five to seven matches at the 2030 World Cup. FIFA inspectors visited the stadium on 10 November, where they were welcomed by president Joan Laporta and given a tour by club operations director Joan Sentelles. Representatives of the Generalitat, the city council and the Royal Spanish Football Federation also took part. According to people present, the inspectors were impressed by the scale of the work and the roughly 9,000 VIP seats, and they noted Barcelona's hotels, restaurants and infrastructure. The choice of final venue was not discussed, and FIFA is expected to decide possibly in May. Berni Álvarez, conseller d'Esports, wrote on social media:

“It is an opportunity to project Barcelona and Catalonia to the world and to demonstrate our organisational capacity to host large international sporting events.”

Jaume Collboni had earlier offered the stadium for the final, while Rafael Louzán, president of the RFEF, did not commit.