Top German insider lifts lid on £40m Chelsea deal on verge of breaking down | OneFootball

Chelsea have a lot of business to do this summer.

They had a big squad to begin with, and have already agreed various additions to swell it further. Then there are the players out on loan who will return and need to either be reintegrated or to find a new club.

The sporting directors certainly have their work cut out – then again, in most cases, this is a mess they made for themselves.

One player they seem to want rid of (rather mystifyingly, given that fans like him and were always impressed by his cameos) is Carney Chukwuemeka. They didn’t find a move for him last summer, so instead left him frozen out of the first half of this campaign.

In January he went on loan to Dortmund, but we now hear from top German football insider Christian Falk that Niko Kovac’s team aren’t going to be able to pay the £40m fee to make the deal permanent. As he points, out, that would break their record transfer fee. So even having that as the option to buy seemed ambitious from the start:

“Chukwuemeka’s release clause should be about £40m [€48m] – in Dortmund’s history, there was never a transfer to the side in excess of €35m. So, you see how much money this would be for Dortmund to seal this transfer at the end of the 2024/25 season.”

Champions League struggles mean Chukwuemeka return likely

Carney Chukwuemeka trains for Borussia Dortmund. (Photo by Alexandre Simoes/Borussia Dortmund)

He also notes that the major issue is that the German giants are so far from the Champions League places, which makes an expensive deal even harder to countenance.

“Dortmund has a problem here; they’re 10 points behind qualifying for Champions League football next term (with seven clubs standing in their way)… If they don’t qualify – there’s going to be a lot of money missing, so they won’t be able to activate a clause of £40m.”

Given all that, it looks like it will be another loan out for Chukwuemeka, unless we accept a lower bid than the clause from Dortmund or from another team.