Newcastle United latest news: Newcastle United face Barcelona in the Champions League Round of 16.
Newcastle United were handed a tie against the Spanish giants during Friday’s Champions League draw, with their potential route to the final in Budapest now being mapped out. A meeting with Tottenham Hotspur or Atletico Madrid will meet the winners of Newcastle United’s clash with Barcelona whilst one of Arsenal, Bayer Leverkusen, Bodo/Glimt and Sporting CP await in the semi-finals.
Their two-legged tie, one that begins at St James’ Park on Tuesday 10 March (8pm kick-off) will not be the first time these two sides have met in this season’s Champions League. Hansi Flick’s side travelled to St James’ Park in September for their first league phase match, eventually running out 2-1 winners courtesy of a brace from Manchester United loanee Marcus Rashford.
Newcastle United, though, will fancy their chances at defeating Barcelona over two-legs, although they know that they will have to do that without the benefit of St James’ Park in the second-leg. Newcastle United fans wanting to plan their trip to the Camp Nou, though, have been left in the lurch over just how many tickets the club will receive for that game.
The current capacity of the revamped Camp Nou is 45,000 but Barcelona hope to get that extended to 62,000 by the time the Magpies make the visit. However, a final decision on the stadium’s capacity is yet to be made, much to the frustration of the club’s president Joan Laporta.
“I'm disappointed because we should already have the license,” Laporta said last month. “However, we'll have it soon. It's going well and at a very high pace.
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“We have the City Council and the mayor committed. There are milestones we want to achieve that require the pace of construction to be as fast as possible: not only the stadium, but also the surrounding area.”
Newcastle United Champions League tickets
Newcastle United are entitled to be allocated 5% of the total capacity for their second-leg against Barcelona, meaning that, as it stands, there will be roughly 2,250 tickets available for Newcastle United supporters. However, if Barcelona do get their capacity extended to 62,000 for the match, then the amount of tickets that the club will receive will jump by just less than a thousand to 3,100.
Many supporters have already booked their travel plans to Barcelona without the knowledge if they will even receive a ticket to the match.
Of course, St James’ Park will play host to the first-leg of the Round of 16 tie, with Newcastle United imposing a £4 increase on ticket prices from the price they paid for their play-off game against Qarabag last week.
The decision by Newcastle United to again raise prices for Champions League matches was criticised by Newcastle United Supporters Trust who wrote on X that they were ‘disappointed that insufficient notice has been given and yet again loyalty is being exploited’.
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