NORBERT DICKEL still remembers that dark day in 2005 when Borussia Dortmund came within a few hours of insolvency. “We were sat in the club office and didn’t know whether we’d still have a job the next day,” the former BVB striker turned stadium announcer told me with a shudder, twelve years later.
The Black and Yellow story five years either side of the new millennium was football’s equivalent of Icarus’ ill-fated flight, too close to the sun. They had risen from mid-table anonymity under the inspired leadership of coach Ottmar Hitzfeld and profited from deep runs in the UEFA Cup at a time when commercial television had just started paying big money for live rights. Clever buys saw them develop into the best side of the Bundesliga, winning two championships ahead of league behemoths Bayern Munich, before really rubbing it in: they lifted the European Cup – the trophy the Bavarians coveted more than anything after going more than 20 years without a triumph in the biggest club competition – in Munich, of all places. Their 3-1 win over Juventus in 1997 marked the high point of their amazing success.
Impressive banner unveiled ahead of Dortmund/Juve kick-off — a tribute to the 1997 European Cup winners. #UCL pic.twitter.com/fYsDsnprr1
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) March 18, 2015
Then they lost their way. Badly. A successful IPO failed to improve their underlying finances as all the money was immediately spent on hugely expensive players. The team were still good enough to win the league again in 2002 and make it all way UEFA Cup final in the following year but after two seasons without Champions League money, financial doom was imminent. In their effort to overtake Bayern, Dortmund had mortgaged themselves to the hilt and could no longer afford the debt payments.
Under new CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke, the club slowly got their finances on an even keel again; Dickel and his co-workers survived the crisis. But in sporting terms, Dortmund were back where they had started 10 years earlier: nowhere in particular, heading for obscurity. They needed a new strategy. It came down to this: they had to stop spending money on seasoned medium-bracket players and instead buy talents that were otherwise overlooked or underrated. In other words, they had to behave less like a football club, always looking to get the best possible player on the market and become more like an equity trader: taking up contrarian or unusual positions in the market with a view to achieving huge long-term growth.
It helped that the new investment policy was underlined by novel tactical ideas of a manager who needed young, hungry players for his system: Jürgen Klopp. The average age of recruits had been just over 27 years before he took over in 2008. The following season, it plunged to 23.5 years, and new Dortmund players only became younger on average over the next decade. Focussing on “high potentials” (sporting director Michael Zorc) that can be sold on for multiple figures might be a slightly unromantic way to run a Germany’s second-biggest football club but Dortmund seem to have hit their sweet spot.
Chelsea sign Christian Pulisic from Borussia Dortmund for £58m.
Taxi for Callum Hudson-Odoi… pic.twitter.com/A983WBEDgo
— Unibet (@unibet) January 2, 2019
Every year, they sell one or two players to make the 300 odd million Euros they lack in organic turnover in comparison with Bayern a little less telling, and with one exception – Klopp’s last season in charge, 2014/15 – they manage to qualify for the Champions League to keep the cycle going. Christian Pulisic, signed as a teenager for a pittance, has proved the latest huge money-spinner, with Chelsea paying £58m for his services for next summer. England’s next big thing Jadon Sancho, a snip at 8m (from Manchester City), will most likely leave for at least double that amount in years to come.
Remarkably, that structurally-mandated turnover has not come at the price of sporting success. Ever since Watzke, Zorc and Klopp re-invented the club, they have won two league titles, two German FA cups and contested one Champions League final (2013, against Bayern at Wembley). There’s a decent chance that Lucien Favre will add another championship bowl to the cabinet in the current season but even if they don’t, the club’s long-term competitiveness and position as Germany’s second powerhouse is secure like never before. Norbert Dickel and his fellow BVB staffers don’t worry about the club HQ closing down again – unless they’re celebrating a big trophy and the whole club comes to a standstill, that is.
