Perhaps not everyone knows that Robert Lewandowski, as Borussia Dortmund's top scorer for three consecutive seasons, had already been authorized by the club to find a new team a season prior. After the current season, as long as the offer was right, Lewandowski would be allowed to transfer.

Borussia Dortmund's official promise to Lewandowski was that they would absolutely not create difficulties regarding his transfer.

People might find it hard to imagine why Borussia Dortmund would so readily let their top scorer leave the team. Shouldn't the normal approach be to retain him through contract extensions?

This brings us to Dortmund's financial policies. In the past, they had signed many star players with extravagant contracts, leading to a heavy financial burden on the club. When the team's performance was not ideal, the pressure from high salaries exploded, causing Dortmund to fall into a severe financial crisis. They had to sell off star players to maintain operations and avoid bankruptcy.

At the time, the club's financial deficit was as high as 98 million euros!

How difficult were those times for Dortmund?

They even borrowed money from their arch-rivals, Bayern Munich!

Bayern Munich lent Dortmund two million euros at an interest rate of eight percent.

It should be noted that in 2000, Dortmund was the only listed club in the Bundesliga, with an opening price of eleven euros. Even Bayern Munich's general manager, Uli Hoeness, was attracted and bought a significant number of Dortmund shares. However, due to poor management, Dortmund accumulated heavy debts, and the stock price plummeted.

In the 2003-2004 season, Dortmund, who qualified for the Champions League play-offs as the third-place team in the league, were eliminated by Club Brugge, losing their Champions League prize money. On the stock market, Dortmund's stock plummeted, experiencing a maximum drop of sixteen percent that day, with the share price falling to 2.38 euros, the lowest since the IPO.

Now, twelve years later, Dortmund's stock price still hasn't risen to four euros...

And in 2002, on the one hand, having just won the league title, the need to spend money to continue and deepen competition with Bayern Munich, and on the other hand, the Kirch Group's bankruptcy brought a financial crisis to Bundesliga teams, Dortmund was not spared either. The Dortmund club, in need of money, turned its attention to the Westfalenstadion, a sacred and inviolable temple in the hearts of Dortmund fans. They sold ninety-four percent of the stadium's shares to the Molsiris Group, a subsidiary of a commercial bank, in exchange for 75.4 million euros. At the same time, they paid an annual rent of 17 million euros to continue using the Westfalenstadion, which continued until 2017.

Dortmund probably never imagined at that time that this would become the last straw that almost broke their back.

2005 was the most difficult time for Dortmund. They were even on the verge of bankruptcy. On March 15, 2005, the German Football League was to conduct a financial qualification review of each club, but at this time, Dortmund's debt problems broke out. The key was the debt problem between the Molsiris Group, which had bought the stadium, and Dortmund. At this time, a debt of 15 million euros between Dortmund and Molsiris was about to mature, and they had to repay the money at the start of the next season.

But Dortmund didn't have the money now. If they had to repay the debt, Dortmund would have to declare bankruptcy. According to statistics, by mid-2006, Dortmund's total debt would reach a record 134.7 million euros.

Fortunately, after negotiations, the Dortmund club and the Molsiris Group reached an agreement. The Dortmund club won more than seventy-five percent support from Molsiris, and the Molsiris Group agreed to postpone the annual debt of 15 million euros, which was originally scheduled to be repaid from the next season.

That was also a few months after the current CEO of the Dortmund club, Hans-Joachim Watzke, took office.

The successful negotiation brought a crucial respite for Dortmund.

The new club CEO Watzke cooperated with Oliver Koen of Morgan Stanley Investment Bank. Koen noticed that although Dortmund's finances were a mess and the performance was not good, the fans' loyalty was the highest in the Bundesliga. The proof was that the attendance rate at the Westfalenstadion was on the rise during the team's games.

Subsequently, they brought in Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and a team of lawyers and auditors to draft a revival and financial restructuring plan for Dortmund.

They obtained an 80 million euro loan with a term of fifteen years from Morgan Stanley Bank, of which 51 million was used to repurchase fifty-one percent ownership of the Westfalenstadion. This helped the club greatly reduce the annual rent it had to pay, reducing the club's financial pressure. Another 20 million was used to balance debts and negotiate with creditors to postpone Dortmund's repayment and rent payment deadlines. Selling stars such as Rosicky and Amoroso earned money, while terminating their high salary expenditures. Players remaining in the team all took pay cuts. Zero or minimal investment in the transfer market. Extended contracts with various sponsors. Despite the opposition of Dortmund fans, the naming rights of the Westfalenstadion were sold for six years, and the stadium was renamed the awkward "Signal Iduna Park", but this move brought the club 20 million euros in naming fees...

Everything was to repay the huge debts as soon as possible, so that Dortmund could stand up again.

During the financial crisis, Dortmund became accustomed to tightening their belts, which was what they had to do to survive. Dortmund was very stingy with player salaries, after all, player salaries were fixed annual expenses, and it was of course most effective to make cuts in this area.

In fact, as early as 2003, due to Dortmund's elimination from the Champions League qualifiers, there were rumors that the club required players to voluntarily reduce their salaries by twenty percent.

Before that, Dortmund's annual expenditure on player salaries was as high as 52 million euros, a figure that ranked in the top thirty-two among European clubs in those years - exactly the number of teams participating in the Champions League group stage, but Dortmund did not qualify for the Champions League group stage that year.

The high salary investment did not bring the corresponding return in performance and economic benefits, but also plunged the club into financial crisis, which was overwhelming.

Later, the club controlled their annual salary expenditure at around 35 million euros through methods such as selling high-salary players and forcing other players to reduce their salaries.

But after Watzke took over as the team's CEO, Dortmund began reconstruction, and the first step was still to reduce salaries - for the Dortmund club, an annual salary expenditure of 35 million euros was still an unbearable burden.

Finally, after hard work, the Dortmund club controlled the first team's player salaries at around 28 million euros per year. Thinking about Dortmund's 52 million euros in the "wealthy" period, it is really sighing.

After that, Dortmund was very stingy with player salary expenditures. When Götze renewed his contract with the club in 2012, an annual salary of 4.6 million was the top salary in the first team. Before that, his annual salary was one million euros...

Before Götze, Dortmund's top salary belonged to captain Kehl, at three million euros.

It should be noted that in the recently concluded 2012-2013 season, Dortmund's first team salary expenditure had not yet recovered to the 52 million euro level of ten years ago.

It is conceivable how stingy Dortmund is in this regard now.

It is also because of this "stinginess" that it is difficult for Dortmund to keep their players.

For example, why did Kagawa Shinji go to Manchester United?

On the one hand, Manchester United's attraction to Kagawa Shinji was great enough, and on the other hand, Dortmund and Kagawa Shinji haggled over the annual salary issue for a long time during the contract renewal negotiations. In the end, due to Manchester United's intervention, Dortmund offered Kagawa a new contract with an annual salary of three million, double his current annual salary of 1.5 million, but Kagawa Shinji still rejected Dortmund and chose to join Manchester United, taking an annual salary of six million euros. This salary is twice as much as the three million that Dortmund reluctantly offered!

And the problem between Lewandowski and Dortmund also lies in the annual salary...