"A lot is currently being prepared. Once the first domino falls, movement is guaranteed to follow," Cramer said, while setting out a broader vision for how Borussia Dortmund should operate in the market going forward.
"We are a club that unlocks potential and sparks imagination, and that has to be reflected in our transfer policy too. It was no coincidence that we brought in Ole Book as sporting director," he added, framing the role in stark terms: "We will need to invest in value again — that comes from our DNA. We are the club that develops players, that makes them better, and we have to generate a different kind of market value than we currently do."
Central to that philosophy is holding onto emerging talent for longer rather than cashing in immediately. Dortmund recently set themselves three targets for the future, the most pressing of which is reducing their annual budgeted losses to preserve financial flexibility, something Cramer reiterated to the magazine.
"We should manage to hit our economic targets through normal transfers, not extraordinary ones," he said. "We don't want to just develop young players so we can sell them tomorrow — we want to keep them with us until the day after tomorrow, or the day after that." The clear priority above everything else, he stressed, remains playing good, successful football.
Asked whether Dortmund could keep pace with Europe's elite, Cramer was candid about the scale of the challenge.
"It's only getting harder. International competition gets more brutal every year. We're right on the edge of Europe's top ten. If we want to hold that position and not get pushed down to 15th, we have to take the next step. We have to ask ourselves: do we want to remain the challenger in European football and business, or do we want to let clubs like Newcastle, Aston Villa, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid or even Leipzig overtake us?"
Despite the uncertainty, Cramer said he was approaching the new season with confidence, while asking for patience given the squad's growing youthfulness.
"We haven't lost a single genuine first-choice player and we have a very solid foundation. At the same time, we need to give ourselves room, because we're getting younger. As convincing as Samuele Inacio was, as promising as Joane Gadou is, we won't be immune to setbacks with a rejuvenated squad."