The Turks will renovate Camp Nou for 900 million euros. They have little experience in building sports venues

The Catalan big club will return to its stadium in November 2024. The winner of the tender guaranteed this date. FC Barcelona has entrusted the renovation of its stadium to the Turkish company Limak Construction. Surprisingly, the company has not specialized in the construction of sports facilities until now.

Limak Construction was founded in 1976. Since then it has become the second largest construction company in Turkey. According to the US weekly Engineering News-Record, it is one of the 250 largest companies in the world in its field. The company beat companies such as Ferrovial, Acciona, Sacyr and FCC in the tender process, although this has not been officially confirmed by the club.

The Turkish builders have so far been mainly involved in the construction of public buildings in the Middle East. They have worked on highways, airports, dams and other large buildings in countries such as Russia, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Of course, many projects were also in Turkey, where they built the Central Bank building.

Limak Construction is also involved in the energy and tourism sectors. However, the company has no experience in building a large sports facility such as Spotify Camp Nou. So far, the company has only been responsible for the construction of the Mersin Stadium in Turkey, which can hold 25,000 spectators.

The venue hosted the Mediterranean Games in 2013, when the work was completed, and regularly hosts the fourth league team Yeni Mersin. The stadium has three UEFA stars and the cost of its construction has reached 100 million euros. There is a proper VIP area, accommodation space, space for corporate guests, restaurants and other catering facilities, shops, even a police station and a health centre.

Transparency in the process

Barcelona recently held a press conference to clarify the details of the tender process. First, Laura Mas, a lawyer from the compliance department (which deals with checking compliance with the law and established internal standards), said that the process consists of five stages.

Once the companies were selected, they were informed of the conditions required by Barcelona. The club then first assessed the bids and then verified them in detail on a technical and financial level. A representative of Barcelona’s compliance department confirmed that the process had clear criteria and was conducted in a transparent manner.

Mas admitted that it was the Blaugranas management that had requested the creation of a body to control all projects within Espai Barca, which in addition to compliance also has an internal audit department and an external consultancy company.

Moreover, she revealed the role of Goldman Sachs in the whole process. The financial institution should have asked rating agencies to assess the financial soundness of the companies participating in the tender.

The deadline is a key aspect

Elena Fortova, Vice President, then took the floor. She presented the construction schedule. “Work is scheduled to start in June, as soon as the sports competition is over. In the 2023/2024 season, Barcelona will move to Montjuïc and return to Camp Nou on 29 November 2024, on the occasion of the club’s 125th anniversary,” explained the club representative.

Fort stressed that most of the work will be completed by then. Barcelona will play in a partially open venue, but the entire construction should be completed by June 2026. The timing was absolutely crucial for the Barcelona authorities and Limak Construction agreed to all the conditions.

The club wants to start reaping the benefits of its stadium as soon as possible, mainly due to its financial situation.

At the beginning of her speech, Fort added that having the current stadium, due to its age, comes with the need to incur large expenses. In this regard, the contract with Limak Construction foresees penalties for failure to meet the deadline, although club representatives did not intend to disclose the figures, stressing that they are confidential information.

The cost and lack of experience in building sports facilities was also admitted by the vice-president. As well as that there were maximum costs for carrying out the work that could not be exceeded. As previously agreed, it is approximately €900 million. Limak Construction is to provide the club with all guarantees in this regard.

Responding to the journalists’ accusations, Forte said that experience in stadium construction is not always a requirement and many technical issues were taken into account when selecting the winner of the tender. She pointed out that Limak had built “the best airport in the world in Istanbul” and was “one of the best construction companies in the world” in the field of civil construction.

She added that in addition, the architects of the stadium supported the selection of the construction company. However, it is not known whether Limak will also build the new Palau Hall as part of the Espai Barca project. The contract only covers Spotify Camp Nou, not the entire project.

Now that a company has been selected to handle the redevelopment, Barcelona will have to finalize agreements on the financing of the facility. Forte corrected that Goldman Sachs will not be lending Barcelona money for this purpose, but will be looking for entities to finance the project. JP Morgan is also acting as an intermediary in this context.

When asked by journalists about the rejection of Spanish companies, the vice president replied that “Barça has not committed itself to choosing a local company and that the project is internationalist with a global impact.”

Limak Construction founder linked to football

Interestingly, the founder of Limak Construction is Nihat Ozdemir, who was also president of the Turkish Football Federation for three years. The fifth richest Turk on the Forbes list is now the honorary president of the company that will be responsible for the redevelopment of the Barcelona stadium.

Ozdemir met Laporta last March at Galatasaray’s stadium on the occasion of a match against Barcelona in the Europa League. The Turk was representing the Turkish federation at the time. According to Mundo Deportivo, the two men have been in contact since then.

Source: FCBarca