Borussia Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke would be willing to spend €100million to bring Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski back to the club, saying: “We could handle that.”
Dortmund have spent a combined €53m on centre-back Abdou Diallo and midfielders Thomas Delaney and Marius Wolf ahead of the 2018-19 season but Watzke made it clear he would happily break the club’s transfer record to secure the services of one of Europe’s top strikers.
Lewandowski left Dortmund for Bayern in 2014 and has since scored 106 Bundesliga goals in four seasons.
Bayern president Uli Hoeness insisted the 29-year-old, who is contracted until 2021, is not for sale at any price, but Watzke would not be afraid to make a nine-figure bid for his services.
“Robert knows the business, the league, even the club and we know he would work right away,” Watzke told SportBILD.
“For such a player, I would be willing to pay even 100 million euros.”
Dortmund’s most expensive signing to date is Andre Schurrle, who joined for €30m from Wolfsburg in 2016, but Watzke made it clear the club would not be left behind by the rising cost of attracting the game’s best talent.
However, having seen players such as Ousmane Dembele, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan rise to prominence at Signal Iduna Park in recent years, Watzke’s preference is for the club to develop its own greats.
“The players in the top segment no longer cost 50, but rather 100 million euros,” he said.
“We could handle that, too, if we absolutely want to have a player and are a thousand per cent convinced.
“But to be honest, I much prefer to create such players myself. BVB has always been strongest when developing its stars.”
Lewandowski joined Borussia Dortmund in 2010 for a reported €4.5 million, he won honours including two consecutive Bundesliga titles and a season as the league’s top goalscorer. In 2013, he earned with Borussia a spot in the 2013 UEFA Champions League Final, a tournament in which he was the second top goalscorer, behind only Cristiano Ronaldo.
Prior to the start of the 2014–15 season, Lewandowski agreed to join their rivals, Bayern Munich, on a free transfer. In Munich, he won the Bundesliga title in each of his first three campaigns, earning a spot in the Bundesliga Team of the Year in every season. In 2015–16, he led the league in goalscoring with 30 goals, and in 2016–17 he was named the Bundesliga Player of The Year. He was named to the UEFA Champions League Squad of the Season on each of the last two seasons.
He has totalled over 170 goals in Germany’s top division, Bundesliga, and reached the century mark quicker than any other foreign player. On 22 September 2015, Lewandowski scored five goals against VfL Wolfsburg in nine minutes, the fastest in any major European football league since records have been kept.
A full international for Poland since 2008, Lewandowski has earned over 90 caps and was a member of their team at Euro 2012 and Euro 2016. With 55 international goals, Lewandowski is the all-time top scorer for Poland. In 2015, he was voted Polish Sportspersonality of the Year and in 2016 he claimed fourth place at the 2015 FIFA Ballon d’Or Awards. He has been named the Polish Player of the Year a record seven times