Borussia Dortmund have raised a massive £876m in player sales since 2015, according to reports.
The German giants are well known for their ability to rake in huge sums of money for talented players they acquired for very little, or even developed themselves.
To ensure they compete at the highest level of German and European football, Dortmund have always allowed their biggest stars to leave for large sums of money, which they then use to rebuild a team.
Before this summer, they had made €994m (£839m) from selling players in just nine years. They soon broke the billion-euro barrier in the transfer market after allowing Niclas Füllkrug to leave for West Ham for £22.8m.
This means that thanks to the sale of superstars such as Jude Bellingham, Erling Haaland and even Ousmane Dembélé, Dortmund have become the best-selling club in Germany over the past nine years, according to BILD.
Borussia Dortmund have sold players worth £876m since 2015, according to reports
The sale of Niclas Fullkrug to West Ham this summer took the total transfer fee to more than €1bn.
Erling Haaland (bottom) and Jude Bellingham (top) left for huge sums in 2022 and 2023
Perhaps the most incredible sale of the many that Dortmund have sanctioned is that of Dembélé, who left for Barcelona in 2017.
The French striker had signed for BVB just a year earlier as one of Europe’s most promising youngsters at just 18 years old.
His 10 goals and 20 assists in 49 games in Germany tempted the Spanish giants to put a monstrous £96m on the table to secure his signature.
Or so we thought. BILD now suggests that Dembélé’s final transfer fee was £124.9m, making the winger the third most expensive signing in history, behind Neymar Jr and Kylian Mbappé, who both moved to Paris Saint-Germain in 2018.
It is believed that all bonus payments from Barcelona to Dortmund have now been completed. £16.9m of the full fee came from the Catalan giants who reached the Champions League on two occasions while Dembele was playing for them.
Another infamous sale in the Bundesliga side’s recent history was that of Bellingham, who left for Real Madrid last summer.
Bellingham arrived at Sign Iduna Park as a 17-year-old from his boyhood club Birmingham City for just over £25m including bonuses.
Dembele’s final transfer fee is believed to have been £124.9m after all bonuses were paid.
It has been suggested that Bellingham told Real Madrid he would only sign if they met Dortmund’s demands of more than €100m.
Year after year, the midfielder’s value skyrocketed before Los Blancos called him up three years after his successful spell in the Bundesliga.
England’s wonderkid could not turn down a move to arguably the world’s biggest club and Dortmund initially made £88m from his sale.
However, Mail Sport reported at the time that the final fee would rise to £113m due to £25m in performance-related add-ons, with a number of those bonuses believed to have been secured.
Dortmund have Bellingham to thank for the huge amount of money they have secured, as it has been suggested that he told his current team that he would only sign if they met the German club’s demands.
While the sales of Dembele and Bellingham proved fruitful for Dortmund, not all of their top talents left for the price they would have liked.
When Erling Haaland left the club in 2022 to sign for Premier League champions Manchester City, he was regarded as one of, if not the, best strikers in the world.
Haaland scored 86 goals in 89 games for the German side but only left for just over £50m
Both Bellingham and Haaland have won the Champions League since leaving Dortmund
However, Dortmund only received just over £50m for this goal-scoring machine, a small sum for someone who had scored 86 goals in just 89 games for them.
The reason for the low fee has now been revealed. Haaland and his team asked for an exit clause to be included in his contract in the summer of 2021, just 18 months after arriving in Germany, BILD reports.
But the German side were initially uncomfortable with the request, given that they had not included such a clause since 2013. However, just a year later, Haaland’s wishes were fulfilled and he moved to his country of birth.
There is no doubt that Dortmund’s sales strategy has been sensational, given the figures shown in this article.
The German giants have spent almost £800m in the same period but have failed to win either the Bundesliga or the Champions League.
However, not all of their money has been synonymous with success. Over the same period, the club has spent almost £800m on transfers, less than £100m less than what it has earned.
In that time, Dortmund have only won three domestic trophies and have been bridesmaids in the Bundesliga on five occasions, although they failed to win it.
