FC Barcelona Monedes Collectibles Fan Token Barcelona Football Stadium 1957 Unique and Rare

Camp Nou (Catalan pronunciation: [ˌkamˈnɔw], meaning new field, often referred to in English as the Nou Camp),^[9][10] officially branded as Spotify Camp Nou for sponsorship reasons, is a football stadium in Barcelona, Spain. It has been the home stadium of FC Barcelona since its completion in 1957. With a current seating capacity of 99,354,^[11] it is the largest stadium in Spain and Europe, and the fourth largest association football stadium in the world.

It has hosted two European Cup/Champions League finals in 1989 and 1999, two European Cup Winners’ Cup finals, four Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final games, five UEFA Super Cup games, four Copa del Rey finals, two Copa de la Liga finals, and twenty-one Supercopa de España finals. It also hosted five matches in the 1982 FIFA World Cup (including the opening game), two out of four matches at the 1964 European Nations’ Cup, and the football tournament‘s final at the 1992 Summer Olympics.

On 15 March 2022, it was announced that music streaming service Spotify had reached a deal with FC Barcelona to acquire the naming rights to the stadium in a deal worth $310 million. Following the approval of the sponsorship agreement with Spotify by FC Barcelona’s Extraordinary Assembly of Delegate Members on 3 April 2022, the stadium was officially renamed on 1 July 2022 as Spotify Camp Nou.^[12]

In April 2022, it was announced that renovation of the stadium will commence in June 2022 after the season’s end.^[13]

The construction of Camp Nou started on 28 March 1954 as Barcelona’s previous stadium, Camp de Les Corts, had no room for expansion. Although originally planned to be called the Estadi del FC Barcelona, the more popular name Camp Nou was used. The June 1950 signing of László Kubala, regarded as one of Barcelona’s greatest players, provided further impetus to the construction of a larger stadium.^[14][15][16]

On 14 November 1950, the president Agustí Montal i Galobart obtained the favourable agreement of an assembly of members^[17] to acquire land for the construction of a new stadium, located in Hospitalet de Llobregat, which was later exchanged with the Barcelona City Council for other land in the neighbourhood of Les Corts. The stadium is located at the end of Travessera de les Corts, next to the Cementiri and the Maternitat. The commission dedicated to the project recommended another location in February 1951. The official purchase took place two years later.^[17]

The appointment of Francesc Miró-Sans as president of FC Barcelona, on 14 November 1953, was to relaunch the project. Invested in February of the following year, Miró-Sans decided in favour of the land acquired in 1950, and the first stone of the stadium was laid on 28 March 1954.^[18] A procession of several thousands of people made the journey from the Camp de Les Corts to La Masia de Can Planes, where the ceremony of laying the first stone was held, a solemn ceremony in the presence of Miró-Sans, the head of the Civil Government of Barcelona and the archbishop of Barcelona, Gregorio Modrego.^[18]

The project was completed one year later, when the club entrusted the construction to the building company Ingar SA. The work was supposed to last eight months, but the costs were more than four times higher than expected, reaching 288 million pesetas. Through mortgages and loans, the club managed to finish the project, borrowing heavily for several years. The club hoped to cover the cost with the sale of the land at Les Corts, but the Barcelona City Council took five years to requalify it, giving rise to a period of certain economic hardship, Finally, the head of state and of the Spanish government at the time, the dictator Francisco Franco, authorised the requalification of the land at Les Corts and put an end to the crisis of the Barcelona club.^[19][20] During the course of the Camp Nou construction work, La Masia served as a workshop for making the models and a workplace for architects and builders.

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p style=”margin: 0.5em 0px;font-family: sans-serif;font-size: 14px” data-mce-style=”margin: 0.5em 0px; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;”>The architects were Francesc Mitjans and Josep Soteras, with the collaboration of Lorenzo García-Barbón.

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p style=”margin: 0.5em 0px;font-family: sans-serif;font-size: 14px”>Finally, on 24 September 1957, the feast of La Mercè, the Camp Nou was inaugurated. A solemn mass presided over by the archbishop, who welcomed the finished stadium, preceded the Hallelujah from Handel’s Messiah. Dignitaries of the Franco regime and of the city gathered in the presidential tribune, and some 90,000 people attended the opening ceremony in the stands of the huge stadium. During the event, football clubs from all over Catalonia paraded on the field, as well as members of the different sections of Barça, the penyes and the different FC Barcelona teams.