The Magpies are hoping to get the green light for another 1,000 tickets for the Nou Camp
A general view of Barcelona's Camp Nou stadium during a game
Barcelona's Camp Nou stadium(Image: Pedro Salado/Getty Images)
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Newcastle United could be about to get a major ticket boost ahead of their trip to Barcelona next week.
It is expected that Barca will get the green light to increase their capacity, meaning it will unlock the prospect of another 1,000 seats for the travelling Geordie faithful. Sport Daily in Barca report this afternoon: "Barca hopes to receive the OK from the City Council in the coming hours for the reopening of the North Stand and the consequent expansion of the stadium's capacity to 62,000 spectators."
Barca hope that their Sunday afternoon clash with Sevilla will result in the increased capacity already being in place. That means Newcastle will be in the clear to sell more tickets in the next few days.
So far 10,000 fans have applied to Newcastle to get their hands tickets for the ultimate away trip. The hope is that Barca can open a further section of seats to take the allocation up to 3,100 - as confirmed by NUSC.
The five-times European Cup winners confirmed to Chronicle Live last week that it had still not been decided how many more tickets could be available to Newcastle with the opening of new stands still pending.
A Barca spokesman also told us: "The visiting team will have, following UEFA regulation, the 5% of the capacity, and so this amount of tickets is not official yet."
But that decision now looks likely to get processed and Newcastle will be pleased to have more support in Catalonia.
Barca president Joan Laporta had been pushing for the capacity increase in recent weeks and feels it should have been done already before Newcastle's visit.
Laporta said last month: "I'm disappointed because we should already have the license. However, we'll have it soon. It's going well and at a very high pace.
"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."
Speaking on the prospect of playing Barcelona earlier in the season, ahead of the first clash, Howe had said: "It’s a historic fixture. As soon as we realised we were drawn against Barcelona, it had a magical feel to it."
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