Dortmund's Transfer Dilemma: Guirassy and Adeyemi's Future
Borussia Dortmund’s summer is being shaped in closed meeting rooms long before a ball is kicked. At the heart of it all: Serhou Guirassy and Karim Adeyemi, two forwards whose futures could define the club’s next step.
Sporting director Ole Book and managing director Lars Ricken have already sat down with Guirassy, laying out their transfer plans and making a clear pitch for him to stay. They know exactly what they stand to lose.
Guirassy’s contract runs until 2028, but the power is not all on Dortmund’s side. The 30-year-old is understood to have an exit clause set at around €35 million, valid for selected top clubs. For a striker of his output, that figure will not scare many.
He has been weighing up a move for some time. Recent reports linked him with Fenerbahce, where presidential candidate Aziz Yildirim is said to have lined up an agreement with the former VfB Stuttgart forward if he wins this weekend’s 6–7 June election. Politics and football, intertwining over a goalscorer.
Inside Dortmund, the language has shifted. The club wants him to stay, but the door is no longer bolted.
Book made that clear. Guirassy’s goals, he said, make him “incredibly important”, and the stance from BVB is straightforward: they do not want to lose him. Yet he also admitted that if an exceptional offer lands on the table, they will listen. For a club that lives off smart trading, romance only stretches so far.
The numbers explain the anxiety. Guirassy has hit 60 goals and 15 assists in 96 appearances for Dortmund, with 22 league goals last season making him their top scorer. Those are not statistics you replace on a whim.
At the same time, Dortmund’s transfer model is unforgiving. They are heavily reliant on sales to fund new arrivals, especially another attacker. The departures have already started: Joane Gadou for €19.5 million, Kaua Prates for €7 million and Justin Lerma for €4 million. Useful money, but not enough to reshape an attack.
Adeyemi's Situation
That is where Adeyemi comes in.
The 24-year-old, under contract until 2027, has become a pivotal financial and sporting question. If he does not extend, a summer sale suddenly looks logical, the last realistic chance for BVB to bring in a significant fee before the risk of losing him on a free.
Talks, though, have hit complications. Reports point to disagreements over salary and the wording of a possible release clause. Adeyemi has pushed back on that narrative, telling WAZ he has repeatedly spoken up for Borussia Dortmund, stressing what he values about the club and how passionate he feels about it.
Even so, his message carried a pointed edge. Above all, he said, he wants a clear signal from the club – whichever way the decision goes. The ball, in his eyes, is not only at his feet.
Dortmund’s planning puzzle does not end there. Any new creator to feed Guirassy, should he stay, remains unnamed in the current reporting. The idea of another reunion with Jadon Sancho had floated around in recent weeks, a familiar solution with a familiar face. That path now appears closed, with consistent reports indicating a return is virtually off the table.
So the picture is stark. Their main striker has a relatively accessible exit clause and suitors circling. A key wide forward is locked in contract talks that have yet to break open. The club needs sales to buy, yet cannot afford to rip out too much of its attacking core.
For Dortmund’s decision-makers, this is not just a transfer window. It is a balancing act between ambition and realism, between the goals they cash in and the ones they still hope to celebrate in yellow and black.
