Perpignan's Nou Camp jaunt could break club rugby attendance record, but will they face Toulouse or Racing-Metro?

As we predicted* last week, Perpignan will finally host a match at Barcelona's fabled Nou Camp stadium next year after the president of Barcelona FC Sandro Rosell met USAP chief Paul Goze yesterday.

As expected, the likely date for the cross-Catalonian excursion is Saturday April 2, when USAP are due to host European champions Toulouse, but Perpignan's newspaper l'Independent has cast doubt on the availability of the 99,000-capacity arena on that date.

While the paper sees no problem with the French league's ratification of the délocalisation - both Bayonne and Biarritz have played in Spain before, at San Sebastien's Estadio Anoeta - there may be concern over the state of the Nou Camp pitch in the aftermath of a rugby match.

The following Tuesday or Wednesday is pencilled in for the last 16 of the Champions League, a stage which 2009 European champions Barca will be odds-on to reach. "They would be unable to play on a potato field," says l'Independent.

By contrast, there is no football fixture scheduled for the Barca bowl in the week following April 16, when Perpignan are due to face Racing-Metro at Stade Aimé-Giral. On current form, the Parisians would certainly be a draw, if not quite as much as French Rugby aristocrats™ Toulouse.

A capacity crowd of almost 100,000 would smash all attendance records for club or international rugby, and the game would no doubt draw rugby tourists from across France and further afield (we're looking at flights already!). And as the weekend of April 16 will also see Barcelona travel to Real Madrid for the most hotly contested game in Spanish football, what better time for a sporting jaunt to the Catalan capital?

*OK, so we ripped it off Le Midol. But where did you read it first, hmmm? Oh.