Extension or farewell?
©IMAGO
Borussia Dortmund’s managing director Lars Ricken spoke to Nico Schlotterbeck about his future immediately after the German national team’s international matches. The central defender’s contract with BVB runs until 2027, but his future has been an issue for some time. After the DFB team’s 2-1 win against Ghana on Monday, Schlotterbeck vigorously contradicted media reports about an imminent contract extension. “I have to clearly deny that, unfortunately we are not that far,” said the 26-year-old.
When asked about this, Ricken reported shortly before kick-off of the Bundesliga game at VfB Stuttgart. “We sat down directly, without consultants,” said Ricken on the pay-TV channel “Sky”. “The relationship of trust between Nico and the club is 100 percent there.” Ricken did not want to quantify how likely there was to be an extension.
But he announced that the next goal would be as soon as possible: “We won’t wait weeks again until we make the next appointment,” said Ricken. Ricken emphasized immediately after the 2-1 win against Ghana that nothing had changed in terms of the basic attitude of tying the defender to BVB in the long term.
Schlotterbeck also emphasized that he would probably have made a decision in the next few weeks, “but now the situation has changed a bit – unfortunately we are not yet at the stage where something is imminent.” He referred to Dortmund’s separation from sports director Sebastian Kehl, who was replaced by Ole Book.
According to “Bild”, there was also a first personal meeting with Book recently, possibly with Ricken. As the paper reported, Schlotterbeck is aiming for better financial conditions after the negotiation break. Accordingly, the Schlotterbeck side would like to sharpen up the issues of exit clauses and salaries. It’s about being able to move for a fixed fee if an extension is extended next summer.
The status of the current negotiations with Kehl is a future contract term until 2031. As things stand, Borussia should also grant the national player an exit clause of around 60 million euros from 2027 and a salary of up to 14 million euros.
