Real Madrid hinted at the beginning of the current season that the new Santiago Bernabeú could be inaugurated around Christmas this year. The date of December 23 was even leaked, although it was never official data. However, having already entered the month of December, the truth is that it is not known when the stadium remodeling works will end, nor is the club currently announcing a date for its completion. The idea being considered is that it will be finished next spring.
The new Bernabéu is, along with the Valdebebas sports city, Florentino Pérez’s most ambitious project, the work that he has been announcing as his main legacy since he began his second term at the head of the club in June 2009. The president of Real Madrid He presented the model of the project on January 31, 2014. It was said then that the stadium would be completed in 2017. The works required an investment of about 400 million euros at that time. They were just good words.
In 2015, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid threw back the project and the works could only begin in the summer of 2019 with the idea that they would end on December 14, 2022, coinciding with the 72nd anniversary of its inauguration . Nothing has gone as planned either and delays are piling up; first because of the global covid pandemic and then because the war in Ukraine has delayed the arrival of materials.
The 400 million in expenses that were initially announced quickly became obsolete. In 2018, the club requested a loan of 575 million. In 2021, another for 225 million more. There wasn’t enough either.
In the last assembly of delegate members, on November 11, the club managed to get approval (always with Bulgarian majorities) to be able to request a third loan, this one for 370 million euros, which brings the financing to 1,170 million euros, almost three times more than the original cost.
The board justified this increase by works not foreseen in the initial project, from the underground greenhouse in which the grass is stored (an idea that Florentino Pérez boasted that he had had), as well as the state-of-the-art video scoreboards, the acoustics of the stadium , lighting, audiovisual screens, an event control room, commercial spaces and VIP rooms.
According to data that Florentino Pérez contributed to the last assembly, until June 30, Madrid had spent 892.7 million on the works: 800 million from the first two credits and another 92.7 million from its own funds. The first loan was obtained at a fixed interest of 2.5%; and the second (also fixed rate), below 2%, as noted in the assembly two years ago. This time the interest of the third party did not materialize.
In his speech, the president of Real Madrid did not make any reference to when the expected inauguration could take place. Yes, he once again insisted on his well-known thesis that the stadium would be an architectural landmark that would become the most representative icon of the city.
Of course, at this point the president of the white club is very far from having achieved unanimity, quite the opposite. The remodeling of the stadium is the subject of memes and continuous ridicule on social networks. The steel sheets of its façade, the surrounding steel skin that Pérez always talks about, are called a “tuned tuna can”; Others see it as “my refrigerator from behind,” and it is even said that “it looks like a store closed by a metal shutter.”
Beyond aesthetic tastes, what Madrid boasts is the financial strength that the new stadium will bring. According to the club’s forecasts, the current Bernabéu generates around 170 million euros per season and the new one will bring it closer to 400 million annually because it will allow the celebration of all types of events and shows. In fact, there are no longer any tickets for Taylor Swift’s concert, scheduled for May 30, seats put on sale and sold out within three hours.
Other sources from the concert promoter sector point out that in order to carry them out, the stadium would need other adjustments that would require another additional investment.
The Santiago Bernabéu will not change its capacity. It was also revealed by Florentino Pérez, who said that the stadium will continue to have a capacity of 80,000 spectators and not the 84,000 planned in the initial project.