Transfer Rumor: Roman Abramovich to Spend All the Money on Earth for Erling Haaland

After selling Jadon Sancho to Manchester United for €90 million, Borussia Dortmund may be reticent to let Erling Haaland, the club’s best remaining attacker, leave simultaneously. With minimal reinforcements coming this transfer window, Haaland will be key to any ambitions for success on the pitch this season. However, according to recent rumors, BVB might just receive an offer for Haaland that could be too good to refuse. It’s often difficult to discern what is true and what isn’t, especially when it comes to transfer rumors, so I thought I’d try to find the original sources for the rumors and piece together what they say.

Yesterday morning, BILD reported that Chelsea’s owner, Roman Abramovich, would “release the funds” necessary to purchase Erling Haaland from Borussia Dortmund. Well how much are “the funds”? According to Bild-Zeitung columnist and Twitter transfer guru Jan Aage Fjortoft, if the fee were in the realm of €175 million, BVB wouldn’t be able to say no.

Wow, did you just say “One Hundred and Seventy Five Million Euros?” That’s quite a lot of cash, even for one of the richest clubs in the world. Well according to BILD, they’re going to “simply” sell a large group of players including but not limited to Callum Hudson-Odoi, Tammy Abraham, and Hakim Ziyech. I’ve heard so many “CHO is leaving” rumors that at this point I’ll only believe it when I see an official facebook post from the club that bought him, and the contracts of Abraham and Ziyech would probably be very difficult to unload, especially for enough money to purchase Haaland. Chelsea, of course, also have Financial Fair Play to consider, having just spend hundreds of millions of pounds on players like Timo Werner and Kai Havertz.

So while €175 million sounds like a lot, and there’s an almost limitless array of possibilities open to BVB if they received such a fee, I don’t think it will happen. But hey, Abramovich has a yacht worth more than the GDP of Micronesia and an irregular business record, so to speak, so never underestimate his ability to find ways to get his way.