The official statement confirmed six immediate departures and three further exits involving players whose loans will not be extended. Four loan players are returning to their parent clubs: Jeanuel Belocian to Bayer Leverkusen, Adam Daghim to Red Bull Salzburg, Jenson Seelt to Sunderland and Jesper Lindstrøm to Napoli. All four had spent the season at Wolfsburg as part of loan agreements and will not be offered extensions.
Jonas Wind and Kevin Paredes are leaving as free agents. Both players' contracts expire at the end of June.
Wind, 27, made 124 competitive appearances for the club and scored 35 goals across four and a half seasons, becoming one of VfL Wolfsburg's most reliable strikers in the post-Bundesliga-champion era. The Denmark international is expected to attract offers from Bundesliga and Premier League clubs.
Paredes, the 23-year-old American winger who joined from DC United in 2022, made 65 appearances and scored four goals. His career at Wolfsburg was repeatedly disrupted by injury — including a fractured foot sustained before the current season began — meaning he never fully replicated the form that made him one of the most exciting American prospects in European football.
Three further players who had been on loan elsewhere will also not return: Nicolas Cozza from FC Nantes, Bartol Franjic from Venezia and Jakub Kaminski from 1. FC Köln.
Wolfsburg's relegation was confirmed in a 2-1 extra-time defeat to Paderborn in the promotion-relegation play-off second leg, ending a 29-year run in the top flight. The club had managed to avoid the automatic relegation places on the final day of the league season but could not survive the play-off.
Christian Eriksen, whose wages are understood to be beyond what the club can maintain in the second division, is also expected to depart, though no announcement has been made.
The rebuild will require new investment, a new coaching strategy and, most likely, a significantly reduced wage bill.