Barcelona move for Karim Adeyemi breaks Borussia Dortmund’s transfer-profit pattern

Barcelona’s signing of Karim Adeyemi has bucked one of European football’s most established transfer trends, with Borussia Dortmund accepting a deal that brings little or no profit compared with their long-running record of huge resale gains.

The Spanish club confirmed last Thursday that the 24-year-old Germany forward had joined from Borussia Dortmund for an initial €22m, with a further €7m in performance-related add-ons, taking the potential total to €29m.

For Dortmund, who chose to cash in with a year remaining on Adeyemi’s contract rather than risk losing him on a free transfer, the structure and size of the fee mark a clear departure from their usual transfer model, according to Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo.

Dortmund paid €30m to sign Adeyemi from Red Bull Salzburg in the summer of 2022. Even if all the bonuses are triggered in his move to Barcelona, the Bundesliga club will not recoup that original outlay in full and will at best limit their financial loss, rather than post the substantial profit that has become their hallmark.

Dembele deal remains Dortmund benchmark

The contrast with some of Dortmund’s most celebrated outgoing transfers is stark.

The 2017 sale of Ousmane Dembele to Barcelona remains one of the most lucrative in the club’s history. Dortmund bought the France winger from Rennes in 2016 for just €15m and offloaded him a year later for €135m, including add-ons. That single deal generated a profit of €120m within 12 months.

Dortmund achieved a similarly striking return with Jude Bellingham. The England midfielder joined from Birmingham City in the summer of 2020 for £29m. After three seasons in Germany, he moved to Real Madrid for £127m, leaving Dortmund with a profit in the region of £98m.

Sancho, Pulisic and Aubameyang follow the same pattern

Jadon Sancho has often been cited as a textbook example of Dortmund’s buy-develop-sell philosophy. The winger arrived from Manchester City for around €10m and, two years later, was sold to Manchester United for more than eight times that amount, making the deal one of the most successful in the club’s recent history.

Christian Pulisic’s rise also reinforced Dortmund’s reputation. Spotted as a 16-year-old in 2015, the United States international was brought into the club’s academy before being promoted to the first team and ultimately transferred to Chelsea for €64m, another sizeable return on a modest initial investment.

In 2013, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was signed from Saint-Etienne for €13m. Four years on, he joined Arsenal for €63m, giving Dortmund a net profit of €50m on the Gabon forward.

Haaland and other high-value exits

Even when contractual clauses have limited Dortmund’s room for manoeuvre, the club have still managed to emerge ahead.

Erling Haaland arrived from Red Bull Salzburg in 2019 for €22m. Although a release clause meant Manchester City were able to sign the Norway striker in 2023 for just €60m, Dortmund still made a €38m profit on a player regarded as one of the world’s elite centre-forwards.

The case of Jamie Bynoe-Gittens further underlined Dortmund’s ability to extract value from young talent. The England winger joined from Manchester City on a free transfer in 2020 and moved to Chelsea in 2025 for €56m, turning him into an almost pure profit asset for the Bundesliga side.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan also delivered a healthy margin. Dortmund paid €25m to Shakhtar Donetsk for the Armenia playmaker in 2013 and sold him three years later to Manchester United for €42m, banking a €17m gain.

Mario Gotze’s first departure from Dortmund followed a different route but led to a similarly emphatic outcome. When Bayern Munich activated the release clause in his contract in 2013, they paid €37m to secure the attacking midfielder, handing Dortmund a €37m net profit on a home-grown player who would go on to score Germany’s winning goal in the 2014 World Cup final.

Adeyemi deal stands out as rare exception

Set against this backdrop of heavily profitable exits, Adeyemi’s transfer to Barcelona stands out as a rare exception in Dortmund’s business record.

From a purely financial perspective, selling him with a year left on his deal is logical, avoiding the risk of losing him for nothing. Yet, unlike previous marquee departures, the move does not deliver the kind of sizeable surplus that has long underpinned Dortmund’s strategy of identifying, nurturing and then selling on emerging talent.

Instead, Adeyemi’s switch to Barcelona is likely to be remembered as one of the few high-profile transfers where Borussia Dortmund deviated from their established tradition of turning major signings into major profit.