Barcelona’s redevelopment of Camp Nou is picking up pace as new video footage shows machinery tearing down parts of the iconic stadium.
The project, part of the wider Espai Barça, had been delayed but work finally got underway last month when the club held an event to mark the start of work on the stadium – including burying a time capsule – before the pitch was promptly dug up.
Work is primarily focusing on the demolition of the third tier, with other sections also to be pulled down and attention given to the foundations.
Video captured by local sports newspaper Mundo Deportivo on Monday morning showed a number of cranes digging into various bits of a stand and piling up rubble on the ground below.
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Barcelona are temporarily moving out of Camp Nou during this phase of the redevelopment and will play home games during the 2023/24 season at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys in the Montjuic neighbourhood – the venue hosted the 1992 Olympics and was home to Espanyol until 2009.
The overall redevelopment of Camp Nou is expected to be completed by 2026, but Barcelona are likely to return before that and resume playing games with a reduced capacity while work on the stadium is still ongoing – the initial agreement to play in Montjuic runs until May 2024.
Barcelona have called Camp Nou home since it was finished in 1957 after three years being built and going substantially over budget. Prior to that, the club had spent 35 years at Camp de Les Corts and the reason that the decision was made to move on from there was that there was no more room to expand after already increasing the capacity several times to its peak of 60,000.
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This article was originally published on 90min as Video footage shows Camp Nou stand being torn down.