FC Barcelona plays their Joan Gamper Cup match on their renovated Spotify Camp Nou Stadium on 10 August with a reduced capacity of around 30,000 fans against an opponent to be confirmed.
As the 2025-26 season progresses, the Catalan club expects to expand their stadium capacity, but claims that the first game will also serve full capacity (104,000 spectators) as a tribute to Leo Messi, who left the club in August 2021 without receiving a guarantee from Barça.
No other player in the history of the club has drawn the Azulgrana shirt and Messi is perhaps the most important player in the illustrious history of the club.
The planned date for the full opening of the Spotify Camp Nou is the summer of 2026.
Both parties still have to extend the finer details with the current relationships between Messi and Joan Laporta still icy after the club president rejected a return request in the spring of 2023, with the Rosario Born Striker eventually moving to Inter Miami.