So that's that.
Lars Ricken left no wiggle room on Friday. "Said El Mala is not a Borussia Dortmund player and he will not become one this summer either," BVB's managing director for sport told Funke Sport.
He went further. There will be no fresh offer. The pursuit is dead.
The €50m wall Köln would not shift
Sky Germany put the fourth bid on Wednesday evening, as Get German Football News reported. Bonuses would have carried the package past €55m.
A sell-on percentage was dangled in front of Köln too. They didn't budge.
The demand never changed: €50m guaranteed, banked, before anyone starts talking bonuses or resale money. Dortmund's fixed fee sat below that line.
So a club-record deal died over the gap between what's promised and what's merely possible.
Annoying? Very. Though probably not wrong.
Die Borussen have already spent about €30m on Konstantinos Karetsas this summer. Doubling that for one 19-year-old, with the guaranteed money loaded up front, is a different sort of bet altogether.
There's a knock-on. BVB Buzz reported that a third Jadon Sancho spell hinged on the El Mala deal, so park the winger and you park that story too.
Why the push in the first place? Karim Adeyemi is a Barcelona player now, sold for a fee in the region of €22m plus add-ons.
One first-team winger out of the door. No senior replacement in yet.
So the search hasn't stopped. Christopher Nkunku is on the radar of die Schwarzgelben and RB Leipzig as AC Milan prepare to cut him loose after a single season.
Ibrahim Mbaye is the other name in the air. PSG want more than €50m to let the teenager go, though Liverpool are in that queue as well.
Two very different answers to the same question. One brings a familiar Bundesliga name back to Germany at 28. The other doubles down on the teenage-recruitment drive Ricken has run all summer.
Neither will be cheap.
Quiet exits, loan moves and a Roma reunion
Plenty happened while everyone stared at Köln.
Almugera Kabar is close to a loan at NEC Nijmegen. That means Champions League football in the Netherlands for a defender who badly needs minutes.
Diant Ramaj may follow him out of the door. FC Copenhagen have opened talks over a return.
The structure on the table? A loan, plus a purchase option worth roughly €5m. He kept ten clean sheets in 19 games during his last spell in Denmark.
Nobody is shifting Gregor Kobel, so a clean exit suits all three parties.
Luca Reggiani is the one that would actually hurt. Bild report that Inter have made contact with his camp.
He signed an extension only in March. Now he's said to be open to a move home to Italy.
Newcastle, meanwhile, are still working up something for Felix Nmecha after Bruno Guimarães left for Arsenal. Dortmund's answer hasn't wobbled: north of €100m, or don't bother.
His deal runs to 2030 and the €80m release clause cannot be triggered until next summer. BVB Buzz reckons Nmecha's transfer situation should cheer supporters up, because the midfielder isn't agitating for anything.
And then there's actual football.
Roma visit Signal Iduna Park tomorrow evening, the 15th August, for the traditional season opener in front of the Yellow Wall. Donyell Malen comes back with them.
He racked up 132 appearances in black and yellow before he left. His Roma move turned permanent this summer.
Watch the young Italians too. Kovac has Samuele Inácio, Filippo Mané and Luca Reggiani available, so a home friendly is where the youth pathway gets tested.
The competitive campaign starts eight days later against Bayern Munich in the Supercup. On the evidence of this week, the eleven who walk out that night will look a lot like the side that finished second last season.
Verdict: losing El Mala stings, though refusing to bid against Köln's own valuation was sound business, so Ricken must now turn that budget into Nkunku, Mbaye or someone equally quick before deadline day.
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