“Our future necessarily passes through a new Santiago Bernabéu stadium, a benchmark for the 21st century”. Florentino Pérez thus presented the reform project for the white coliseum. The memory of the original, which was inaugurated on December 14, 1947, will remain and its stupendous location within the Spanish capital. Precisely, that date was, 75 years later, one of those that the club visualized at the beginning of last year for the presentation in society of the New Bernabéu. However, the plans were delayed. Florentino himself explained it in ‘El Chiringuito’ last month: “It will be ready in about a year, at the end of next season. We started the works and as soon as we started the pandemic came. And then the war in Ukraine and that, as we all know, has caused two things: the lack of materials and the rise in prices”.
The remodeling works started in the summer of 2019 and it was expected that in 2022 they would have come to an end. The health break, at first, was seen as something positive, since Madrid played during 2020-21 and the end of the previous one at Alfredo Di Stéfano. However, the materials were located for dates that could not be brought forward and the arrival of some of them, in fact, was later than expected due to the ravages caused by COVID-19 on the planet. After that, war broke out in Ukraine, one of the world’s leading exporters of steel, the material needed to complete the new retractable roof. This made it impossible to meet the deadlines set and that December 14 became chimerical. In addition to colliding with the World Cup (the final is on the 18th). The inauguration would have lost its shine and footballers, since the majority of the white club’s stars will be present in Qatar. So the hope within the entity, as Florentino slipped, is that the 2023-24 season begins with the New Bernabéu completely finished. Of course, there is no date for the launch.
Meanwhile, the works are advancing at a good pace and the operators are working piecemeal to meet the deadlines set after so many setbacks. Until the fourth day, on September 3 against Betis, the team will not set foot in its stadium again. 97 days after the celebration organized after winning the Fourteenth. This, together with the aforementioned World Cup event, where the Bernabéu will be ‘closed’ for another two and a half months, will allow new impulses for the remodeling. Little by little the light is seen. The Tour of the Bernabéu reopened its doors on June 1, although with only one floor and not the four that visitors will walk through when it is at full capacity.
Capacity of the New Bernabéu
The illuminated and futuristic image of the New Bernabéu, completely covered, will become an icon. That is the intention of Madrid and Florentino Pérez. That is why it closed an agreement with Sixth Street for 360 million euros, so that Legends, a company specializing in stadium management, would exploit the possibilities that the work will offer. The intention is none other than to exploit the stadium 365 days a year, with events of all kinds, taking advantage of the retractable grass that will be another of the jewels in the crown of the inauguration. One question that arises, in the midst of so much change, is whether the capacity of the white fiefdom will change, from 81,044 today. And the question is answered by the club itself on the official website: “A new stand will be built on the east side with a capacity of around 3,000 spectators, which will be used to relocate the rest of the stadium areas in which access comfort will be increased, while maintaining the same existing capacity”. There will be changes in the type of distribution and layout, but not in the number of fans that the New Santiago Bernabéu can accommodate.
When will the works on the Bernabéu end and how much capacity will the new stadium have?