The claim, pushed by an anonymous X account and reshared thousands of times, alleges that the £51 million release-clause payment Manchester City announced when they signed Erling Haaland in June 2022 was a cover story, and that the real all-in package was closer to €250 million.
It has taken off in the days since an independent commission ruled that Manchester City had breached Premier League financial rules on 114 of the 115 charges the league brought against them.
The €97m ceiling on Dortmund’s whole summer
The number does not fit inside Dortmund’s own books. The club’s audited 2022/23 annual report states that gross transfer proceeds for the fiscal year were €97.1 million.
That figure covers not just Haaland but every player sale the club booked that summer: Manuel Akanji to Manchester City, Steffen Tigges to 1. FC Cologne, Ansgar Knauff to Eintracht Frankfurt and Bradley Fink to FC Basel.
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Even if the entire €97.1m had come from Haaland alone, it would still be under 40 percent of the sum the viral post claims.
The filing also goes further into the accounting. Net transfer income for the year came in at €72.5 million once residual carrying amounts of €20.7 million and transfer costs of €3.9 million were deducted.
A €250m payment from a Premier League buyer to a publicly listed Bundesliga seller would leave a footprint somewhere in those accounts, either as revenue, as a receivable, or as a disclosed off-balance-sheet arrangement. None of Dortmund’s public filings show one.
What Manchester City actually paid
Manchester City confirmed the deal on 13 June 2022: a €60m release-clause activation worth £51m at the exchange rate of the day, on a five-year contract.
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Sky Sports reported at the time that the total spend for the buying club, including signing bonus and agent payments, was around £85.5m. That works out at roughly €100m at 2022 exchange rates, well under half of the sum the viral claim asserts.
The screenshot at the centre of the story is attributed to an unnamed “Dortmund sporting director” but does not link to any interview, press conference or on-the-record quote. It first appeared on an anonymous X account rather than in a byline from any of the reporters who ordinarily break Haaland stories.
It landed the same week as the 114-charge verdict
The Premier League’s independent commission delivered its ruling on Manchester City’s financial charges on 25 September 2026, finding the club guilty of 114 of 115 charges covering seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18. No sanctions have been announced. Manchester City are expected to appeal.
The Haaland transfer sits outside that window. It was booked in the summer of 2022, several years after the last of the charged seasons.
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The paper trail is what it was on the day the deal was signed: a €60m release-clause payment to Borussia Dortmund, disclosed in the Bundesliga club’s own annual report and audited against a €97.1m total for the whole summer window of sales.
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