Badalona – Estadi Municipal de Badalona

Article updated: 19/05/2026

On 15 May 1903, Football Bétulo Club was formed by the Catalan athlete and musician Francesc Viñas Bosch. The club chose to play in red-and-blue striped shirts and host their matches at the Plaza del Sol in Barrio de Casagemes. In 1906, the club moved to Campo de Montgat in the district of Manresa and, following some success on the pitch, joined the Catalan Football Federation in 1908. As their kit clashed with FC Barcelona, they changed to blue shirts and black shorts and chose the more specific name of Foot-ball Club Badalona.

Initially, FC Badalona competed in category B of the Campeones de Catalunya and in 1913, they added the distinctive white scapular (that’s a “V” to you and me) to their blue shirts. This appeared to have an immediate effect as they won promotion to the top division later that year. They remained in the top division until the end of the 1915-16 season, but following relegation, they took another 11 years to regain their top-flight status. The 1929-30 season saw FC Badalona join the Tercera and achieve top-three finishes in the first three seasons. In 1932-33, the club won their regional group in the Tercera, but lost the playoff with Elche CF 0-7 on aggregate. In 1933, the club merged with FC Artiguense and moved to the Camp de Sant Adrià in the Barrio de Artigues. Now known as Badalona Esport Club, they entered La Segunda’s new format and finished in Sixth. The following season, the club finished fourth, and on 11 October 1936, just a few months after the start of the Civil War, it opened a new stadium on Avenida de Navarra.

When football returned after the war, Badalona Esport Club survived for two further seasons in La Segunda before crashing out of the division with just 8 points from their 22 games and 84 goals conceded. In 1941, the club changed its name to Club de Fútbol Badalona, and after a spell in the Catalan regional leagues and the Tercera, the club returned to La Segunda in 1947-48. Their five-season-long stay did not see the club finish higher than tenth, and they were relegated at the end of the 1951-52 season. There followed just over a decade in the Tercera before the club won back a place in La Segunda for the 1963-64 season. Relegation playoff victories against Gimnastica Torrelavega and CD Cartagena saw the club avoid the drop in its first two seasons, but there was no avoiding demotion to the Tercera at the end of the 1967-68 season when La Segunda was reorganised into a national division.

CF Badalona would spend the remainder of the 20th century flitting between the Tercera and Catalan Primera, but a drop in 2001 to the Catalan Preferent Territorial (Tier 6) prompted action. The club sought another merger, this time with Unió de l’Esport Badaloní, a club that had just finished fifth in the Catalan Section of the Tercera. The merger saw CF Badalona take the place and much of the squad of UE Badaloní in the Tercera. CF Badalona celebrated its centenary in 2003 and renamed their stadium to mark the occasion. After winning the Catalan Tercera title in 2003-04, the club entered the playoffs and beat Caravaca CF and Villarreal B to gain promotion to Segunda B. In 2005-06, CF Badalona won Group III of Segunda B and entered the playoffs with real hopes of regaining its place in La Segunda; however, a 2-5 aggregate defeat to CD Linares put an end to those dreams.

At the end of its time, the Camp del Centenari was as rudimentary as any ground you would find in the top three levels of Spanish football. Save for a few hundred uncovered seats on a raised wedge of terracing on the west side of the ground, its 4,500 capacity was made up of four to eight steps that surround the pitch. The reason for little if any development of the site was, in part, due to a protracted argument with the local municipality over the sale of this site on Avenida de Navarra and the building of a new ground on the edge of town at Torrent de la Batllòria a Montigalà. The design of the new ground was scaled down due to the slump in property prices and therefore the reduced value of the land on Avenida de Navarra. The plans for a new 5,000 capacity stadium were finally authorised by the local municipality at the end of March 2011, but work did not commence until late 2015. CF Badalona played their final match at the Camp Del Centenari on 11 May 2014, losing 1-3 to Lleida Esportiu, before setting up a temporary home 1500 metres to the west at the extremely basic Camp de Montigalà.

To add to the sense of frustration, CF Badalona’s temporary home was next to the plot of land that had been earmarked as the site of their new stadium. Work finally began in late 2015 on the new municipal stadium, and whilst the club had hoped to be in situ for the start of the 2016-17 campaign, CF Badalona finally got to play at their new home on 25 January 2017 (1-0 vs Espanyol B). The focal point of the €7.5m development is the main stand on the west side of the enclosure. Similar in design to the stand at the Nou Camp Municipal de Cornellá, it is just over 80 metres in length and features a propped cantilevered roof. The space behind the props is used to house media facilities and VIP suites. The main stand sits atop 14 rows of seats, whilst the other three sides are made up of a ring of 5 rows, giving a total capacity of 4,170.

A run of 17 seasons in Segunda B came to an end following the curtailed 2020-21 season, when CF Badalona was relegated to the newly formed Segunda Federación RFEF. In the summer of 2022, the latest in a long line of mergers saw CF Badalona absorb Unió Esportiva Costa Brava (Formerly Unió Esportiva Llagostera). The agreement would see UE Costa Brava renamed Club de Futbol Badalona Futur and play their home matches in the Segunda Federación at the Estadi Municipal de Badalona. Meanwhile, CF Badalona played their home matches in the Tercera at the same stadium on alternate weekends. The agreement broke down in the summer of 2023, and the nomadic Club de Futbol Badalona Futur was evicted from Badalona and headed off to Vic.