Dortmund Accept Inevitable Exit For In-Demand Bellingham Next Summer

Bellingham's stock continues to rise astronomically after a bright start to the season for Dortmund.

The former Birmingham City midfielder has scored nine goals and provided three assists in 22 appearances across all competitions this term.

Bellingham is in a rich vein of form for club side Borussia Dortmund and has recently been made one of his side's deputy captains despite being just 19 years of age.

Bellingham is set to play a key role for England in the upcoming FIFA World Cup in Qatar after being named in Gareth Southgate's 26-man squad.

After losing Jadon Sancho and Erling Haaland to Manchester United and Manchester City respectively over the last two summers, Dortmund are bracing themselves for the exit of another top young talent.

"We will hold talks now, as soon as [the World Cup in] Qatar is over," Watzke told Bild. "Then we'll have a fundamental talk about what he would like.

"He just needs to tell us if he'd like to stay or if he'd like to go. In both cases we'll talk about it very pleasantly and reasonably together.

"In general we can imagine that he'd stay with us, but we can't behave as if this topic wasn't on the table.

"If he says 'I'd like to do something else,' then the really big [clubs] in Europe will be there and we can't afford to fight financially."