Ten million euros a year. That is what Borussia Dortmund pay Serhou Guirassy, according to Bild. It has turned out to be the shrewdest defensive work the club has done all summer.
Barcelona spent this month hunting a new striker and got as far as asking the question about him. Then they saw the number on his contract.
Whether that alarms you or reassures you probably depends on how much you trust Dortmund's transfer department these days. Personally I find it reassuring, for reasons that become obvious the moment you look at what he does on a Saturday.
What that salary is buying
FotMob credits Guirassy with 17 Bundesliga goals last season. Kovac builds the whole front line around him, because a defender has to track his runs all afternoon whether the ball is near him or not.
Strip the wage out and half of Europe would take him tomorrow. Put it back in and the list drops to about six clubs who could afford to pay his wages without flinching.
Cast your mind back a fortnight. His release clause only opened the door to seven elite sides, as BVB Buzz noted when the clause was ticking down.
Nobody bid at all. The Catalans were sitting on that list then too.
Why nobody is paying it
So the same club has come back, looked again and walked away over the salary rather than the fee. Funny how quickly a number on a payslip settles an argument.
What Barcelona actually want up top is Julian Alvarez, though Atletico Madrid keep saying no. The shortlist has since stretched all the way down to Nicolo Tresoldi at Club Brugge. Cheaper, younger, nowhere near as proven.
Where does that leave die Borussen? Holding a striker nobody else can afford to pay, on a deal that runs to 2028, in a squad BVB Buzz already reckons is built around him rather than around a replacement.
You could call the wage a millstone. I'd call it the cheapest transfer insurance the club has ever bought, because it does the work Lars Ricken would otherwise be doing in a room full of agents every summer. Cashing in now would mean swapping a proven finisher for a teenager and a prayer, with barely a week of the window left.
There is a version of this story where the salary becomes a problem. It arrives in about two years, when the Guinean turns 32 and the goals start to thin out. That is a worry for another sporting director on another August morning.
Verdict: Guirassy's salary is quietly doing a job Dortmund's negotiators never have to.
Likelihood: Hard to see him moving before the 1st September deadline. Barcelona have moved on.
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