The renovation work cost approximately 900 million euros, but the stadium could not withstand the bad weather that Madrid felt; The problem was already noticed in June

After more than 10 years of planning and an investment of 893 million euros, Real Madrid intends to open the “new” Santiago Bernabéu stadium on December 23. But in the past few hours, the stadium was severely affected by the rain that fell on Madrid, which led to a large part of the stadium being submerged in a large amount of water.

The works have already been delayed for more than a year – and were supposed to be completed before the start of the 2022/23 season – and have exceeded the initial projected cost, set in 2019, by €355 million.

The stadium already has a dome that covers the entire pitch and can be opened or closed within 20 minutes, as well as a retractable floor, but this offside problem could now delay the opening, as the same thing already happened in June. As it turns out, no solution has been found yet.

The renovations also affected the pitch – since it receives less sunlight, it dries out more quickly, and for this reason, it had to be replaced five times last season, which cost the Madrid club about 1.5 million euros.