Opportunities
By once again directly qualifying for the UEFA Champions League, the club again has the opportunity to consolidate its standing as one of Europe’s top teams and to once more share in the profits distributed for participating in the lucrative competition.
Borussia Dortmund’s approach to its squad is one of creating new momentum and structures in its personnel choices. Nuri Sahin took over as head coach for the 2024/2025 season, signing a contract that runs until 30 June 2027 after Edin Terzić left Borussia Dortmund at his own request. Nuri Sahin’s assistant coaches are João Tralhão, Ertuğrul Arslan (both of whom were Nuri Sahin’s assistant coaches at the Turkish first-division club Antalyaspor) and Łukasz Piszczek, all of whom will draw on their various experiences in different areas to help Borussia Dortmund to achieve its sporting objectives. The previous assistant coaches Sven Bender and Sebastian Geppert left on 30 June 2024. Mathias Schiele will replace Otto Addo as the new personal coach for top talents in the coming season. On 1 May 2024, Lars Ricken, the former director of the Youth Academy, was appointed Borussia Dortmund’s Managing Director for Sport. His contract is set to expire on 30 June 2027. On 1 May 2024, Sven Mislintat, an expert with many years of experience and a successful past at BVB, was also appointed Technical Director and will focus in particular on squad planning. He reports directly to Managing Director for Sport Lars Ricken and Sporting Director Sebastian Kehl. Thomas Broich, who gained a wealth of experience playing professional football in the Bundesliga and abroad and valuable insights into youth training programmes during coaching stints in Frankfurt and Berlin, will take over as sporting director of Germany’s currently most successful youth academy in the 2024/2025 season. These personnel changes will provide new impetus. The long-term focus at the level of sporting management offers Borussia Dortmund a solid basis for planning and gives those in positions of responsibility the opportunity to keep building on the excellent and trusting relationships they already enjoy and to unlock the potential for improvement that is there to see. We are confident that this is the ideal team to lead Borussia Dortmund into the future.
Borussia Dortmund finished the past season in fifth place with 63 points, once again qualifying directly for the UEFA Champions League. The team reached the round of 16 of the DFB Cup. The team’s best performances were in the UEFA Champions League, playing fantastic football all the way to the final at Wembley where it notched up a very unlucky loss to Real Madrid. This demonstrates the enormous potential of the squad. The job of the new coaching staff is to make further adjustments so as to unlock that potential as much as possible over the course of the entire season and across all competitions and to get the team to play an attractive style of football. Borussia Dortmund pursues a dual strategy when putting together its squad: Firstly, it targets young, hungry and versatile stand-out players whose market values show great potential, either from its own youth academy or from other youth academies in Germany or abroad. Secondly, it gives its squad structure by signing experienced, quality players who are mentally strong with leadership capabilities that the younger players can turn to and develop under. Borussia Dortmund signed centre-back Waldemar Anton, who played for the German national team at the European Championship. He is technically sound, physical and strong in the air and is supposed to take a leadership role within the team. Borussia Dortmund also reinforced its offence by signing Guinea international Serhou Guirassy, a complete striker who demonstrated his lethality in front of goal by becoming the Bundesliga’s runner-up top goalscorer behind Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane in the previous season. The healthy mix of youngsters and veterans in the squad as well as the new direction that the personnel changes at the sports management level will provide are expected to help the team unlock its full potential and achieve the greatest possible success on the pitch. Borussia Dortmund has an excellent team, a fact that is not lost on other top European clubs. Accordingly, there is always the possibility of lucrative transfers.
Borussia Dortmund sees further potential in its youth setup, where it lays the foundation for its sporting success. To this end, the club has added new offices for the sports management team at the Dortmund-Brackel training ground in recent years. This investment helped to further consolidate all the areas under the direction of the Sports department. Borussia Dortmund hopes the direct proximity to the training ground will help it work with greater efficiency and purpose and further optimise its pipeline of talented youngsters for the senior team. Furthermore, in financial year 2023/2024, Borussia Dortmund entered into a purchase agreement to expand the training ground in Dortmund-Brackel, This expansion will enable professional training facilities to be set up for Borussia Dortmund’s women’s teams, and the proximity of the facilities will help to integrate the women’s and men’s football programmes. This will further strengthen Dortmund-Brackel’s standing as the sports centre.
Borussia Dortmund has an array of young, top talents in the likes of Julien Duranville, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Kjell Wätjen, Youssoufa Moukoko and Tom Rothe, who have either already established themselves in the senior team or are on their way to doing so. The highly talented Cole Campbell, who plays for the United States’ U19 national team and rose through the ranks at Borussia Dortmund’s U17 and U19 teams, has signed to the senior team. Borussia Dortmund also relies on a mix of continuity and transformation in its youth and U23 setups. Marcel Schmelzer, who played professional football for many years and captained Borussia Dortmund’s senior team, will be an assistant coach to U23 head coach Jan Zimmermann beginning in the 2024/2025 season. Marco Lehmann will remain head coach of the U17 team in the 2024/2025 season, while Karsten Gorges will once again train the U16 squad in the 2024/2025 season. The fact that Germany’s U17 national team won the 2023 European Championship with four players from Borussia Dortmund, that Borussia Dortmund’s U19 team once again reached the league final in the 2023/2024 season and that the U17 squad even won the league title is also a testament to Borussia Dortmund’s successful youth development. Mike Tullberg, the U19 head coach who with his team has already proven more than capable of developing highly talented players, has a contract that runs until 30 June 2026.
Borussia Dortmund maintains close and longstanding partnerships with its sponsors. Borussia Dortmund’s long-term partnership with the global sports marketing agency SPORTFIVE Germany GmbH, its marketing partner since 1999, runs until 30 June 2031. The collaboration covers all areas of marketing, such as the acquisition of sponsors, the expansion of partnerships and the marketing of the hospitality areas at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK. Borussia Dortmund and SPORTFIVE Germany GmbH have set themselves ambitious national and international marketing growth targets for the coming years. In addition to its present focal areas, SPORTFIVE Germany GmbH will also be responsible for marketing women’s football and e-sports. Borussia Dortmund’s international marketing activities in the coming years will focus in particular on expanding its partnerships in the United States, which it has identified as a target market and where the team set off on a summer tour in July/August 2023 and where it opened a permanent representative office and formed BVB Americas Inc. in New York in March 2024. This will enable us to serve the American market even better and in a more targeted manner. For some time now, Borussia Dortmund has operated a football academy in the United States, which organises training camps in 18 cities throughout the country from its home base in Dallas, Texas. Borussia Dortmund has specifically been working on the US market with its strategic partners Puma and Evonik for a number of years now and is currently also collaborating with five partners that are headquartered in the United States: EA FC, Workday, Coinbase, Prime and Topps. In the summer of 2025, Borussia Dortmund will compete at the FIFA Club World Cup. The format of the competition, which will be held from 15 June to 13 July 2025 in the United States, has been expanded and will include 32 teams for the first time. In addition to performing well in the competition, Borussia Dortmund also wants locals to learn about the club’s special history. The United States is also co-hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup together with Canada and Mexico. In addition to having a presence on the American market, Borussia Dortmund continues to be active on the Asian market. Borussia Dortmund travelled to Thailand and Japan as part of its Asia tour between 19 July and 25 July 2024. To bolster its presence there, Borussia Dortmund played test matches against the Thai club BG Pathum United and the Japanese club Cerezo Osaka. Furthermore, Borussia Dortmund formed Borussia Dortmund Football (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. The goal of such trips, which are a key component of Borussia Dortmund’s internationalisation strategy, is to bring the club even closer to and connect with its international fan communities and partners and give all fans from around the world the chance to immerse themselves in the world of Borussia Dortmund.
Borussia Dortmund considers SPORTFIVE Germany GmbH to be a strong and reliable partner with a global marketing network and extensive expertise. Borussia Dortmund has entered into (long-term) contracts with its strategic partners (SIGNAL IDUNA Group until 2031, PUMA International Sports Marketing B.V. until 2028, and 1&1 Telecommunication SE and Evonik Industries AG, each until 2025), which provides long-term planning security. Borussia Dortmund also extended various other sponsorship relationships and entered into new contracts. The club has lost none of its appeal, despite the recent pandemic.
In the 2023/2024 season, Borussia Dortmund welcomed virtually sell-out crowds to all of its home matches at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK and was not hindered in any way from directly engaging and interacting with its fans Borussia Dortmund makes infrastructure investments in SIGNAL IDUNA PARK in order to continually improve its fans’ stadium experience and to better meet the increased logistical requirements. This included making our catering services and the associated logistics state of the art. The construction work was successfully completed as planned prior to the start of the UEFA EURO 24. Accordingly, Borussia Dortmund and its fans will also reap the benefits of these measures at the home matches in the coming season. Borussia Dortmund also previously launched a digitalisation initiative at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK – from the media centre to the video walls – to seize the opportunity to make the stadium digitally fit for the future and thereby even more accommodating to fans and sponsors alike. This digitalisation process will be systemically driven forward.
Borussia Dortmund is also keeping abreast of the latest technological developments in artificial intelligence and is already using the first AI solutions in several specific areas. The use of artificial intelligence will help to optimise and automate processes throughout the Group. This will enable Borussia Dortmund to create new services and offers for fans that previously would not have been technically or economically feasible.
Borussia Dortmund’s overall objective is to use AI to make workflows more efficient and effective, thereby boosting productivity and easing the burden on employees. The AI strategy devised by Borussia Dortmund and the establishment of BVB’s own AI principles form the basis for keeping pace with and benefiting from technological developments. Maintaining a digital, data-driven focus and becoming experts in the use of cutting-edge technologies will enable us to harness competitive advantages going forward.