With €30m Deal Jobe Bellingham Is Set To Follow Well-Trodden Path To Dortmund | OneFootball

Just two weeks into the summer break, Borussia Dortmund are already approaching one of the most significant transfers of the summer.

Jobe Bellingham, the younger brother of Real Madrid midfielder Jude, has verbally agreed to a transfer to the Bundesliga club. This clears a significant hurdle. Now, the final agreement on the transfer fee with the newly promoted English Premier League side AFC Sunderland is pending.

The 19-year-old has a €40 million release clause in his contract with Sunderland, but decision makers at Borussia Dortmund hope to pay significantly less.

According to Ruhr Nachrichten,  a verbal agreement has been reached between the player’s father and agent, Mark Bellingham, and the CEO of the six-time English champions, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, under which the 19-year-old can move this summer for around €30 million.

Borussia Dortmund’s Sporting director, Lars Ricken, and head of professional football, Sebastian Kehl, who are negotiating the deal, met the player while he was on his break with his brother, Jude, in Ibiza. They aim to reduce the transfer fee to a fixed €25 million plus €5 million in bonuses.

According to Sky Germany, Bellingham is in line for a five-year contract with BVB. The young Englishman will receive an annual salary of €3.5m. Bonus payments could increase his income to up to €5m per year.

Jobe is recognised for his technical ability, physical presence, and outstanding composure on the ball and is currently the club’s number one priority. However, BVB have consistently managed to maintain a transfer budget ceiling of €35m, with Ousmane Dembele, who arrived from Rennes in 2016, being the highest transfer to date, leaving a sound margin for ongoing transfer business.

Since the near brush with bankruptcy in 2005, the club has relied on the transfer business model and has delivered consistent profits in all seasons, apart from the pandemic-hit 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.

Notable examples of outstanding transfer business include Erling Haaland, who arrived from RB Salzburg for €25m and was transferred to Manchester City in 2022 for €60m, and Christian Pulisic, who came on a free transfer but earned the club €63m in a deal with Chelsea FC in 2019.

In terms of Jobe Bellingham, the calculation the club appear to be working towards, if the widely reported transfer fee is correct, is a transfer fee of a maximum of €30m plus a maximum salary of €25m. The contract is believed to be for a five-year term. This will result in a total package of €55m.

Although additional signing-on fees will need to be agreed with father Mark, who represents the England U21 international, the deal, if Lars Ricken can secure it, will leave margin for another successful BVB transfer coup.

The deal, as outlined, puts Bellingham at the same level as his brother Jude at the beginning of his time at Dortmund.

Despite promotion to the Premier League with Sunderland and interest from clubs such as Eintracht Frankfurt and Manchester United, Bellingham has decided to take the well-trodden path for English talents wanting to accelerate their careers to the Westfalenstadion.

Bellingham has already announced that he would prefer to participate in the Club World Cup with BVB. How this will affect England’s title defence at the U21 European Championship, which begins on the 11th in Slovakia, will need to be discussed with The FA.

As soon as the transfer fee has been agreed upon with Sunderland, the midfielder will be officially presented to the media and is expected to begin team training at the Hohenbuschei immediately in preparation for the 32-club tournament, which kicks off on June 15th.