[NoSkillz]

July 2026- Transfer Window


Transfers OUT

ST - Alberto Velazquez - Valencia - £5,250,000
MC - Paolo Secchi - Birmingham - £4,200,000
DL - Ralf Kramer - Sampdoria - £4,000,000

A pretty quiet transfer window by our standards as far as players moving out. Velazquez is a 20 year old striker prospect who we picked up from Mexican side Pumas in 2024 for a bargain price of £325,000. He dominated with our U18 team that first year and even got into a pair of games for our senior team, including a substitute appearance in a Champions League game. We loaned him out to Werder Bremen last year but he only made 8 appearances for their club as a depth piece. Valencia made us a very fair offer well above his value and we took it, as he would be in tough to make an impression here. He leaves Dover after 2 years and 2 scoreless appearances with our senior team.

I mentioned a bit earlier that Paolo Secchi was looking for more starts so we moved him just before July to Birmingham in a £4,200,000 deal. We picked up Secchi on a free from Barcelona, where he starred for their 2nd Division team FC Barcelona Atletic. We weren’t able to get him a lot of playing time in that first year so we loaned him to Fiorentina in Italy, where he featured prominently. He was back with us last year but again, he was always a fourth or fifth choice and was never destined to unseat any of our incumbents. He leaves Dover having made 15 senior team appearances (2 starts), contributing two assists.

Lastly, we move out third string left fullback Ralf Kramer to Sampdoria for £4,000,000, a nice profit after bringing him in for only £1,300,000 the year before from Koln in Germany. Kramer featured for our dominant U18 club but also played one scoreless league game for the senior team, where he acquitted himself well. He is a decent prospect but is blocked by both Renato Gaucho and Wonderkid Rafinha so he was definitely expendable.


LOAN OUT


MC - Juan Jose Culebras - Wolves - Free
DC - Andrew Hunter - Brighton - Free
ST - Bakary Kone - Almeria - Free
DR - Emerson - Koln - Free
DC - Adam Betts - Millwall - Free

Pretty much all youngsters here, with Kone, Emerson and Culebras all having significant potential. This is the second year in a row we’re sending Emerson away on loan, as he’s currently blocked here by Salim Loucif and Rodolfo Lopez.


RELEASED PLAYERS


GK - Ross Peake
DC - Danny Hope
DC - Domenico Fracassetti
MR - Giuseppe Forti
ML - Cheikh Gueye
ST - Neil Evans

Not much to see here, as most of these players were just U18 contributors that weren’t ready to contribute at the next level. Danny Hope did get one senior team substitute appearance in for us last year and scored on a header, a nice moment for him. Cheikh Gueye started in one of our League Cup games last year while Giuseppe Forti made one substitute appearance for the senior team as well. Neither of them got on the scoresheet in their single game with the top club. We wish them all the best.