Hertha BSC travels to the training camp in Zell am See without its star players. 23 field players and four goalkeepers are in Austria for the period from July 12th to 21st, including numerous young talents. On the other hand, Jessic Ngankam (22) is missing. Eintracht Frankfurt is the buyer of the U-21 international.
Both clubs are working to finalize the transfer in the coming days. Until then, the attacker should train in training group II in Berlin. Tolga Cigerci (31), who only came in winter, had already packed his things on Tuesday evening and is moving back to MKE Ankaragücü.
The sales candidates Dodi Lukebakio (25), Lucas Tousart (26), Suat Serdar (26) and Krzysztof Piatek (28) as well as goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow (31) were also not allowed to climb on board. For cost reasons, Hertha wants to part with the star players who can train under professional conditions in Berlin. Training with the U23 is not planned.
The financially troubled club has a big problem: All of these five players were brought in when Hertha squandered the millions from ex-investor Lars Windhorst. They were correspondingly expensive to purchase, namely a total of 84 million euros. And the numbers in their current contracts are correspondingly plentiful. If they earned a lot in the Bundesliga, they earn far too much in the second division. Hertha can no longer afford it.
The quintet is breaking the salary budget, which has shrunk by 40 percent. The club, which calculates with a budget of 30 million euros, has to sell the players. But this is exactly what interested clubs know. Accordingly, they try to take advantage of the hardship of Berliners, push prices down and play for time.
Hertha, on the other hand, would like to keep the loss as low as possible, but is in a much worse negotiating position, especially since there are still many weeks between the start of the two divisions on July 29 at Fortuna Düsseldorf and the closing of the transfer window on August 31. In addition, only first division clubs should be able to pay the players.
