Borussia Dortmund was established in 1909 by 17 football players from Dortmund. The following decades the club had modest success playing in local division. In 1962, the Deutscher Fußball-Bund (DFB) met in Dortmund and voted to finally establish a professional football league in Germany to begin play in August 1963 as the Bundesliga.
Borussia Dortmund earned their place among the first 16 clubs to play in the new league by claiming the final pre-Bundesliga title. In 1965, Dortmund won their first German Cup.
In the last few years, Borussia Dortmund have been the only side who have tried to challenge Bayern Munich's hold on the Bundesliga title. They haven't been successful, but are the side to have last won the German Bundesliga title.
Like their neighbours Schalke, Dortmund too have a very good academy and haven't spent exorbitantly like Bayern Munich. Unlike the rest of the clubs, though, they've tried to attract better players to keep up with Bayern and feature regularly in the Champions League.
Dortmund were involved heavily in the summer of 2017. Ousmane Dembele left for a record fee after just a year before and Dortmund decided to spend the money on Andriy Yarmolenko and Maximilian Philipp to add more pace on the wide areas. The club also signed Mahmoud Dahoud to add more tenacity to the midfield.
Omer Toprak and Jeremy Toljan were signed to add more quality to the defence. In January 2018, the club signed Michy Batshuayi on loan after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was sold to Arsenal. Marc Bartra left the club for Real Betis, so the club spent £19.35 million on Basel centre-half Manuel Akanji.
| Player | Transfer Fee |
| Andre Schurrle | £27 million |
| Henrikh Mkhitaryan | £24.75 million |
| Márcio Amoroso | £22.95 million |
| Andriy Yarmolenko | £22.5 million |
| Mario Götze | £19.8 million |
| Player | Transfer Fee |
| Ousmane Dembélé | £99 million |
| Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang | £57.38 million |
| Henrikh Mkhitaryan | £37.8 million |
| Mario Götze | £33.3 million |
| Mats Hummels | £31.5 million |
