Chelsea agree shock €50m Deadline Day transfer - Fabrizio Romano

Tom Weber

Updated: 2 Feb 2025 15:39 CST
4 min read

Chelsea and Borussia Dortmund have agreed a shock €50 million transfer for Carney Chukwuemeka, according to Fabrizio Romano.

It took until the final hours of the January transfer window, but Chukwuemeka will leave Chelsea at last. Linked with an exit all window, the England youth international had no shortage of suitors but the Blues' demands made a deal tricky.

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Initially, Chelsea insisted that clubs pay the 21-year-old's whopping €48 million release clause, which naturally scared off suitors considering that Chukwuemeka has barely played since joining the Blues in 2022.

Indeed, the Austria-born midfielder has not even made a Premier League matchday squad under Enzo Maresca this season, so no club was ever going to agree a permanent deal at that price.

Chelsea thus eventually opened the door for a loan departure of Chukwuemeka and he has now secured his move.

Dortmund to sign Chukwuemeka

Overnight, Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea agreed a bizarre transfer for the youngster. According to Fabrizio Romano, the Bundesliga side will loan Chukwuemeka until the end of the season with a purchase option worth more than his €48m release clause.

This is strange because just a day earlier, Chelsea had rejected Dortmund's opening loan offer with a €30m clause on the grounds that they were unwilling to accept any purchase option at all in his loan transfer.

Dortmund returned with an improved bid and the Blues evidently changed their stance. Signing Chukwuemeka permanently would absolutely obliterate the Black and Yellow's transfer record, which is still held by Ousmane Dembele, who joined for €35m in 2016.

It therefore seems incredibly unlikely that Dortmund will actually exercise that option unless they are planning a transfer procedure that has so far only been seen on a much smaller scale in Germany.

Last summer, second-tier Fortuna Dusseldorf made Christos Tzolis' loan from Norwich permanent and immediately sold him on for a profit because they couldn't actually afford him. Nurnberg are going to do the same with PAOK's Stefanos Tzimas this year, signing him for an incredible (by 2. Bundesliga standards) €18m and then selling him to Brighton for around €25m.

Dortmund could try something similar if Chukwuemeka proves a successful signing. If he flops, they will just send him back to Chelsea. Still, it would be absolutely astonishing if they were to actually sign him permanently at that price.

Chukwuemeka has never played more than 500 minutes of senior football over the course of a season. In fact, in his four campaigns in the Premier League, he has only played a combined 880 minutes.