Barça president claims Spotify Camp Nou 'is ready to host games'

The FC Barcelona stadium, the Spotify Camp Nou "is ready to host games," club president Joan Laporta claimed in an interview with Catalunya Ràdio radio station on Tuesday morning.

"We have followed all the required procedures, we have already submitted the certificate of completion of works," Laporta said, although, the city council must issue the license and there is no date on when this could happen.

"The stadium is ready, as Spain's LaLiga and UEFA have already said. However, I do not want to put any pressure because these processes take their time, and it is now the city council who has the ball is in their court," he said.

The team's president spoke hours before a group of Catalan journalists visits the stadium and before the city council's technical team addresses the media in the afternoon.

Barça will reopen the Camp Nou in three different phases, allowing a different number of spectators in each phase. "The first one [with capacity for 27,000 spectators] is completed, as the construction team, the certification agency, and the construction board have told us," Laporta said.

He hopes that "the city council quickly decides" on the activity license, so the stadium can host the first game as "supporters deserve" enjoying a game at the refurbished Camp Nou.

Laporta spoke hours after FC Barcelona player Aitana Bonmatí won her third consecutive Ballon d'Or, and Lamine Yamal and Vicky López winning the Kopa Trophy. Ewa Pajor also won for finishing the top scorer in Europe.

"It was a fantastic news," Laporta said. "We are very proud and happy to have these high quality players, who project the image and values of Barça across the world," he added.

Bonmatí mostly spoke in Catalan and thanked her teammates, which is what Laporta praised her as a "brave person for speaking in Catalan, for feeling the blaugrana colors and the territory."

Yamal, who was one of the favorites to win the Ballon d'Or, lost against French former Barça player Ousmane Dembélé.

"Lamine is happy with a prize like such, the Kopa Trophy, the second consecutive one he receives. No other player has had two Kopa Trophies, and this is something that will push him to continue working," the Catalan team president said.

"He is the best player in the world in his position, and he has been proving himself," he added before saying that "collective hits are very important, and that individual victories are a consequence of a common one."

Barça had officially announced it would return to Camp Nou on August 10 to play the Gamper Trophy. The match was played at the Johan Cruyff Stadium, the team's stadium next to its training facilities with a capacity for 6,000 people, where the women's team competes.

Despite a delay, the team had hoped to play La Liga's first home game at the stadium, but was also held at the Johan Cruyff site.

The team has already announced that it will play the first game as a local of the UEFA Champions League against PSG at the Montjuïc Stadium. On Tuesday morning, the club had yet to announce where the LaLiga game against Real Sociedad would be played.