Barcelona won't demand €1m daily fines from Camp Nou construction company despite year-long delay to renovation

Barcelona’s Camp Nou renovation, once positioned as a flagship achievement of the Espai Barca project, spiralled into a saga of delays, criticism and missed milestones. The project has now drifted a year beyond the original November 29, 2024 deadline, yet the club will not enforce the €1m-per-day penalty clause included in Limak’s contract, Mundo Deportivo reports.

This decision arrives after months of concerns surrounding the project’s management. One of the earliest internal ruptures occurred when Jordi Llaurado, the board member overseeing Espai Barca, resigned following president Joan Laporta’s choice of Limak as the construction partner. Llaurado opposed the selection - he believed Camp Nou’s reconstruction warranted a top-tier, perhaps publicly traded firm subject to strict regulatory oversight. Limak, in contrast, submitted its bid late, failed to meet certain formal criteria, and reportedly scored the lowest in technical evaluations. The former board member also refused to attend the vote, signalling his disapproval, and resigned weeks later in protest.

Now, the club face the consequences of that choice. Camp Nou remains partly closed, its phased reopening far slower than promised. Having just returned to Camp Nou for their first game last week, Barcelona continue to play matches in a stadium still surrounded by cranes, incomplete roofs and unfinished concourses, undermining the initial pledge of a sparkling return for the club’s 125th anniversary. And despite the long delay, Laporta has made it clear that invoking the penalty clause is “out of the question,” insisting that the project’s setbacks stem from circumstances beyond Limak’s control.

Barcelona argue that many of the delays arose from factors that no contractor could have fully prevented - bureaucratic bottlenecks, permitting challenges, and labour inspections that caused repeated stoppages. The City Council’s prolonged approvals forced work to halt for weeks at a time, while EU safety requirements and municipal restrictions on continuous construction shrank operational hours.

Beyond the red tape, the site itself produced new complications, according to various reports. Construction teams discovered high-voltage cables requiring a full rewiring, hazardous materials that mandated specialised removal, and significant drainage issues in the pitch area that pushed the turf regrowth back by months. Meanwhile, global disruptions, from a major steel supplier’s bankruptcy to shipping delays linked to geopolitical tensions, further slowed progress.

Extreme heat waves in Catalonia brought mandatory labour stoppages under new Spanish regulations, and noise-control laws blocked the possibility of 24-hour shifts that could have accelerated work. Subcontracting delays in the VIP zones, still incomplete and without final facades or luxury seating, extended the timeline further. The enormous roof which required 1,400 tons of steel cabling remains one of the biggest components now pushed into 2026.

Laporta insists these conditions make litigation unwinnable, and that pursuing over €200 million in fines would damage the relationship with Limak and jeopardise completion. The club argues that its priority must be guaranteeing the stadium’s full 105,000-seat reopening by mid-2026, not entering a lengthy legal battle that could stall progress.

Adding to the controversy, the Catalan Labour Inspectorate recently fined an Extreme Works subcontractor €1m for employing 79 undocumented workers on site, an incident that has sparked further scrutiny of oversight standards and casts another shadow over the project’s execution.

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Barcelona has repeatedly missed the self-imposed return dates. From the 2024 anniversary target to the 2025 Joan Gamper Trophy and a planned reopening for the Valencia match that was abruptly transferred back to the Johan Cruyff Stadium over last-minute permit complications. Montjuic’s Estadi Olimpic, the temporary home since 2023, has offered little comfort: reduced capacity, muted atmospheres, and away supporters frequently out-chanting the home crowd.

Frustration reached boiling point when a viral video showed a fan confronting Laporta directly, accusing the leadership of making empty promises. Online forums have produced forensic breakdowns of the delays, with some analyses attributing a majority of setbacks to preventable planning errors rather than uncontrollable externalities.

Internally, the strains are equally evident. Fixture scheduling for La Liga and the Champions League has become a logistical ordeal, with multiple departments forced to react to each shift in construction timelines. VIP clients are now voicing dissatisfaction due to unfinished lounges and premium zones, jeopardising key revenue streams.

Reduced capacity at Montjuic has cost Barcelona tens of millions annually in lost matchday revenue - money desperately needed amid ongoing debt and salary-cap constraints. Delays also erased potential earnings from events such as Champions League openers and commercial activations tied to the stadium’s reopening. Overrunning material and labour costs have inflated the renovation budget well beyond initial projections, intensifying the strain on a club already navigating a €1.3 billion debt.

By waiving over €200 million in possible penalties from Limak, Barcelona has sacrificed a potential revenue buffer. Meanwhile, the €1m government fine over undocumented workers added yet another financial burden to a project already plagued by unforeseen expenses.

Yet the Espai Barca renovation is not without progress. Partial reopening has allowed Barcelona to host select La Liga and Champions League matches at Camp Nou once more, and an open training session earlier this month offered a glimpse of life after the cranes are gone. Sustainability objectives, such as 18,000 square metres of solar panels, large-scale material recycling, and water-reuse systems, remain on track despite delays to their installation. Still, the road to full completion stretches into 2026.