If you read the Wikipedia entry on Nick Woltemade, you'll notice something. It says a lot about the 24-year-old national player: that he also played handball initially. That after moving to Werder Bremen's youth department, he won the Spatzenberg Cup in Löhne as an eleven-year-old. When he had success and in which youth team.
And of course, the detours he had to take to become a professional footballer: his loan to the then third-rate SV Elversberg, the return to Bremen and finally the phenomenal season that Woltemade played at VfB Stuttgart in 2024/25 - and which catapulted him into the national team. Of course, his move to Newcastle United exactly a year ago is also mentioned.
But what can't be found on Wikipedia is the first thing that comes to everyone's mind when they think of Woltemade: the damn high fee that the English paid for him - and the poker that preceded this move.
We remember: Bayern wanted the 1.98 meter tall offensive player. The Stuttgart team, who had gotten him for free a year earlier, asked for an insane 100 million euros. Bayern reacted as they tend to do in the rare cases where they don't get a player: they denounced a decline in morals. Where are we going from there?
The end is known. The Stuttgart team actually found a club that paid what no one in Germany could imagine: 75 million euros plus bonuses for a player who had just had a good season in the Bundesliga. Some even speak of up to 90 million. Nobody knows for sure.
One thing is clear: the debate about whether Woltemade is worth so much money has damaged him. When he didn't play at the World Cup, there was talk of a crash. It is not that unusual for a player whose breakthrough was less than two years ago if he is not a regular in the national team. But the money paid for him determines his perception. This may be why there is nothing about it in his Wikipedia entry. You know how it works: these entries can be edited. Unpleasant things can be deleted – by whomever.
Woltemade's entry will probably be updated soon. After just one year in England, he changed clubs again. He will be loaned out to Juventus on Deadline Day, the last day of the transfer period. Newcastle let him go: they no longer have any use for the player for whom they knocked out the German record champions twelve months ago.
The idea that it might be worthwhile to give Woltemade, who scored eleven goals and prepared five in 51 competitive games last season, a little more time never occurred to anyone at the club, which is owned by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund. Why? Money doesn't matter - people, and professional footballers still do, are even less important.
These are the mechanisms by which the business works: buy, sell or, if that's not possible, borrow. The gigantic sums that have been invested can be easily written off thanks to long-term player contracts. There are players who moved to a top English club six years ago but never played for that club. They were awarded again and again – year after year.
Anyone who believes that the transfer system serves to sign players, develop them and build a team with them is quite naive: This may still be partially true with regard to the Bundesliga, which, unlike the Premier League, has not (yet) opened up to international investors. But internationally, things are operated, postponed and bargained according to completely different rules. Players are often just pawns. It's a sick system.
For Woltemade this could mean: He impresses in Turin - but still has to pack his bags again at the end of the season. Because Juventus doesn't want to pay the transfer fee, which even then probably won't correspond to its market value. And Newcastle may loan him out again - somewhere where someone gets the idea at the last minute that he could use another striker.
