The most valuable new ones are loans
©IMAGO
The winter transfer window brought 50 additions to the Bundesliga. The clubs paid 99 million euros for permanent transfers and loans – Manchester City alone paid 95 million euros for Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guéhi. In an international spending comparison, the German upper house takes sixth place, ahead of the Saudi Pro League (93 million) and behind Ligue 1 (105 million).
The fans will only see the most expensive new signing, RB Leipzig’s Abdoul Koné, with a transfer fee of 17 million euros, in Germany from 2026/27, because the defensive talent will end the season at Stade Reims. He wouldn’t have made it into the top eleven of the most valuable additions anyway. The three players with the highest market value were only loaned out this time, which is probably because heavyweights like FC Bayern and BVB didn’t invest at all and Bayer Leverkusen only made minimal improvements.
Ten Bundesliga clubs have bought for a million or more. The struggling VfL Wolfsburg took most of the money into their hands. For 25 million euros, five players made it into the top eleven, including Jonas Adjetey, who went to Basel for 9.5 million euros, and Bayer loanee Jeanuël Belocian. The Leipzig team has Brajan Gruda, the most valuable player at 28 million euros. On deadline day he was surprisingly brought in on loan from Brighton for the rest of the season – costing 1 million euros.
Behind him is Eintracht Frankfurt’s Arnaud Kalimuendo, whose short-term loan fee of 1.5 million euros went to Nottingham. The Frenchman is supposed to replace striker Jonathan Burkardt. The SGE is represented in this top eleven three times, but has taken part a total of five times: Younes Ebnoutalib came from the second division team Elversberg for 8 million euros and Ayoube Amaimouni-Echghouyab from the third division team TSG Hoffenheim for 200,000 euros – they are not in the selection. All three new Eintracht strikers have already scored, but could not prevent the miserable start to 2026 with two draws and five defeats.
HSV, which recorded six additions, has been waiting for a three-pointer for six Bundesliga games. Only four of them are really new for the fans, because Otto Stange returned early from his loan from Elversberg and comes with a sensational quota: he only needed 309 minutes of play for his five goals. Stange has the lowest market value among Hamburg’s winter arrivals at 2.5 million euros.
The loan players Albert Grønbaek (Rennes), also a member of the top eleven, Damion Downs (Southampton) and Philip Otele (Basel) as well as the permanently signed Sander Tangvik (Rosenborg) and Warmed Omari (Rennes) increase the squad value by 26 million to 146 million euros. Omari is only an entry on paper, as he was signed permanently after a six-month loan.
A look at the top eleven shows that it was mainly the clubs that considered their place in the table that could be improved that were active in the winter.
