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Barcelona are racing against time to make their return to the Spotify Camp Nou for their first home match of the 2025-26 season, but as things stand, playing that match against Valencia at their home stadium will be very tricky.

Originally, the plan was for Barcelona to return to the Spotify Camp Nou with a 60,000 capacity, but this will not be possible. Instead, the home is to play against Valencia in September with 27,000 fans in attendance, and this would be allowed, given that Barcelona City Council have provisionally agreed to this.

However, total approval would only come if Barcelona got everything in order. And at this stage, it is difficult to see this happening before the Valencia match, which will be played on the 13th or 14th of September.

As per RAC1 (via Sport), the ECA have recently conducted an environmental report on the Spotify Camp Nou, and their findings have shown that there are several anomalies in this phase of construction.

It’s been revealed that during the test, which was conducted a week ago, more than 200 deficiencies were found in the works of the Spotify Camp Nou. And although Barcelona have assured that this is normal, they are running out of time to get fixes in place before they face Valencia in just over a month’s time.

Where will Barcelona play if not the Spotify Camp Nou?

Barcelona are clear that they will be playing against Valencia at the Spotify Camp Nou, but if it turns out that they cannot meet this deadline, the idea is to play the MD4 clash at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys in Montjuic, where they called their home during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. There had been rumours of the Estadi Johan Cruyff being used, but this is not possible due to La Liga rules.

This article first appeared on Football Espana and was syndicated with permission.

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