Independiente del Valle "not happy" with the structure of their deal with Borussia Dortmund for Justin Lerma

Borussia Dortmund announced the signing of Justin Lerma this week, with the young Ecuadorian talent set to join the club in 2026 when he turns 18. For Dortmund, this is a very good deal as the young South American talent gets to stay with Independiente del Valle and continue to develop.

While the deal seems to fit quite nicely into Dortmund's plans for Lerma, Independiente del Valle Honorary President Michel Deller has expressed dissatisfaction regarding the structure of the deal. According to his interview with Mundo Deportivo-Cobertura FM, the club expected the negotiations with BVB to accelerate quickly.

"We knew that Justin was going to happen, the people from Dortmund visited us many months ago. They had seen Justin play, then agents appear who, instead of facilitating everything, complicate everything."

- Michel Deller

These "agent complications" both accelerated and muddled the details of the deal for Independiente del Valle, who, according to Deller, would have hoped for the deal to take on a different structure.

"We are not very happy that this transaction was made at such a young age. We would have preferred that the player mature a little more, that he had more minutes in the professional team. The amount we receive is not even close to 10 million, it is less than half. We could have bonuses for prizes, in a future sale we would keep 15% of a minimum value."

- Michel Deller

Deller went on to mention that these sorts of situations make it hard for a club like Independiente del Valle to retain their players for longer stints, which is of course an unsavory facet of the current transfer market at many different levels. The mention of the fee being less than 10 million euros is also an indication that they feel they should have received more for Lerma's departure.

On Borussia Dortmund's end, this deal was clearly good business, but it is also clear that Independiente del Valle feel hard done by the nature of this move. This sort of deal structure is very much something that is new in terms of BVB's transfer business, but many other clubs, particularly in England and Spain, have struck these sorts of deals within the South American market for years to great effect. Unfortunately, it does often come at the cost of talent and financial security for the selling club in question.