Sport Bild reports that RB Leipzig are readying a €60m package for Said El Mala. Fifty million of it upfront, then €5m in bonuses.
A smaller slice hinges on unlikely sporting success, plus a percentage of any resale.
That guaranteed €50m is the exact figure Cologne held out for through weeks of talks with Borussia Dortmund. BVB never quite met it.
Worse, El Mala is said to have discussed a Leipzig move with teammates on the Thursday. Dortmund hadn't even pulled out of the deal by then.
What die Borussen did with the money instead
Lars Ricken ended it on the 15th August in about as blunt a sentence as a sporting executive gets to use. El Mala "is not a Borussia Dortmund player and he will not become one this summer either."
Cologne's Thomas Kessler then disputed BVB's version of the talks. That got ugly in public.
Forty-eight hours later Dortmund had spent roughly €52m on Giannis Konstantelias and Joey Veerman. Two senior internationals for less than one teenager would have cost.
BVB Buzz argued at the time that the collapse could be a blessing. On the raw arithmetic that reads well.
The part that will sting anyway
El Mala is 19. Konstantelias is 23 and Veerman is 27.
Buying the 19-year-old is supposed to be the entire point of Dortmund. Jude Bellingham went to Real Madrid for a fee that funded two windows. Karim Adeyemi has just followed him out. Same principle every time. The money comes back in and goes straight out again on the next teenager.
So die Schwarzgelben have just done the sensible short-term thing and the un-Dortmund long-term thing in the same week. BVB Buzz asked what comes next the moment Ricken killed it.
Picture the December afternoon when El Mala cuts inside and buries one against Kobel. Every rejected bid gets relitigated on social media within the hour. Brace yourselves.
Kessler said on Sunday there was "no reason to doubt" his man would stay at Cologne.
None of this makes Dortmund's reluctance wrong. Fifty million euros for a player with one full Bundesliga season behind him is a big ask. Ricken was entitled to say no.
It just means Dortmund now need Konstantelias and Veerman to be the right choices. Because Leipzig look like they're about to get the one player BVB wanted most.
Verdict: Refusing to guarantee €50m for a 19-year-old was the disciplined call, though it will look worse every time he scores for somebody else.
Likelihood: Leipzig completing this before the deadline looks more likely than Cologne holding firm.
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