Barcelona will organize their first home game of the season against Valencia on 14 September. It was planned like their return to Camp Nou to Spotify, but now there are further doubts about their stadium that is ready on time.
A number of proposals are made when Barcelona is forced to postpone the return, including playing at Montjuic (unlikely for a concert on Friday evening), playing in the Estadi Johan Cruyff (6,000 capacity) and playing behind closed doors. The last idea was that Barcelona the game is asked for an away game, in which Valencia organized the game instead at Mestalla.
However, Cadena Cope reports that La Liga has no plans to allow Barcelona to have a fourth consecutive game away from home at the start of the season. They say that it is against the rules to change the order of the matches in the calendar, while Barcelona had made their request before the season started playing the first three games away from home.
Barcelona still has to communicate an alternative to La Liga, and they say that the most likely alternatives are the Estadi Johan Cruyff, or Girona's land, Montilivi. The latter is about an hour north of Barcelona and can organize a little less than 15,000 fans.
In the meantime, Marca says that more deadlines are being missed. Barcelona had focused this Monday (August 25) as the date on which they wanted to send the certificate of completion to the city council because they are looking for an opening permit for Camp Nou. That would be to open the stadium for 27,000 fans. Yet that still has to happen, and there is no clarity about when this will be the case.
It is not lost that Barcelona has explained the UEFA until Thursday where they will play the competition phase of the Champions League. The Blaugrana must stick to one stadium for the entire competition phase, and although UEFA has agreed to Barcelona to start away from home, making them extra time to ensure that it is ready, they need that license before August 28 if they want to play it in Camp Nou. It is no surprise that Barcelona has protected the use of Montjuic until February.