Kehl: BVB needs creative and courageous transfers – Ryerson as an example

Sports director Kehl on strategy

Borussia Dortmund’s sports director Sebastian Kehl believes that unusual actions are necessary more often than before in view of the financially strong competition from Saudi Arabia on the transfer market. “We can no longer play along in some transfer and salary areas, we have to accept that and draw our conclusions from it,” the 43-year-old explained in an interview to the newspapers “Funke Media Group“We have to be more creative, braver, sometimes sign players on free transfers and possibly bring in young players even earlier.” This also brings with it greater risks.

As an example of such a youngster, the manager cited the signing of Julien Duranville (17), who was signed by RSC Anderlecht for 8.5 million euros at the beginning of 2023. And the 5 million purchase of Julian Ryerson (25) was courageous at the time – “i.e. signing someone from Union Berlin in the winter who was not immediately known to every fan. Today you can see how important he is for us. It will also be courageous to bring talents up from the youth academy again so that we can benefit from our work there.”

BVB wants to continue to be one of the best clubs in Europe, even if the competition increases. “There are new players on the market, if you look at our group alone, Newcastle have invested a huge amount of money, as have Milan. Paris anyway. We have had to deal with these challenges for a long time,” said Kehl about the Bundesliga club’s group in the Champions League.

He made it clear that BVB needs to take part in the “premier class” every year for economic reasons. “And we will not accept that we simply put ourselves behind in terms of sport. Yes, we have a competitive disadvantage compared to clubs that have billionaire owners or entire states behind them. We have to earn our own money and we will always have to make sure that we also sell players,” emphasized the manager. “Of course I would also have liked to keep a Jew Bellingham (went for 103 million euros; editor), seeing what stamp he can already make on Real Madrid. Nevertheless: We want to play an important role in Europe.”

BVB is 40th in the spending ranking – Kehl believes in the Champions League round of 16

Newcastle invested 153 million euros in new signings in the summer, which puts them in twelfth place in the international spending ranking. At AC Milan it was 114 million euros (19th), at Real 130 million euros (15th), the Parisians even put 350 million euros on the table (3rd). The black and yellow ranks in 40th place with 62 million euros for Felix Nmecha (22), Marcel Sabitzer (29) and Niclas Füllkrug (30).

Despite only having one point from two games and fourth place in the group in the Champions League, Kehl still believes they have a chance of reaching the round of 16. “It’s a fantastic group in which we’re certainly not the favorites, but I still believe we can progress. We have the opportunity to attack again in the two games against Newcastle,” said the ex-professional before the duels with the “Magpies”, who are sponsored by Saudi Arabia.

For Borussia, it is “not an easy task” to “permanently justify” second place in the Bundesliga behind FC Bayern: “We all have the ambition to achieve something upwards and become German champions again, the dominance to break Bayern’s lead at certain points. We were and are always the number one challenger in people’s eyes. In the end, you still have to make it so that people’s motivation and satisfaction don’t depend exclusively on first place or a title, because this race that we want to win is, from an economic point of view, an unequal one.

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