Borussia Dortmund have already sold Jadon Sancho this summer (to Manchester United for €85m (£73.1m, $100.7m), and they could part ways with Erling Haaland as well. According to a report originating in 90 Min, Chelsea have set the maxium price that they’re willing to pay, and Stamford Bridge is confident that Dortmund will accept the offer.
That sum? €175.3m (£150m, $207m), and that would easily surpass Paul Pogba going back to Manchester United in 2016 as the most expensive player ever signed by an English club. It would also be good for the third most expensive transfer ever, placing the Norwegian wonderkid above Philippe Coutinho and everybody else, save Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.
It also means that BVB will have one hell of a financial windfall with which to fund their next rebuild. Not to mention the 150 million Euro that the Bundesliga outfit would have realized, in profit, on the Haaland purchase and then later sale.
The 20-year-old has an exit clause which drops all the way down to €75m (£64m) next summer, and Stamford Bridge are obviously well aware of that, but the thinking here, according to the narrative, is that the west London club can go really big now, while few others can, so they need to utilize their competitive advantage while they still can. Chelsea have been linked to Erling Haaland for some time.
Haaland has repeatedly been linked to numerous other big clubs, including Real Madrid, Manchester City and Manchester United. And it’s only clubs of this size who can bid for him this summer, so maybe Chelsea is the right fit?
With BVB then having a cash flow of 225m Euro (from Haaland and Sancho) incoming this summer, maybe this is best for all involved? According to 90 Min, “Chelsea have already held lengthy talks with Haaland’s camp, which is led by agent Mino Raiola, and that personal terms are not an issue.”
Erling Haaland is definitely the next big thing in world football, at least among pure scorers, so it is understandable why he would (or will) cost crazy, stupid money.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune.
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