Founded in 1909 by eighteen football players from Dortmund, they are nicknamed Die Schwarzgelben (The Black and Yellow), for the colours used in the club's crest.

[11] The club was founded on 19 December 1909 by a group of young men unhappy with the Catholic church-sponsored Trinity Youth, where they played football under the guidance of the local parish priest.

The priest, Father Dewald was blocked at the door when he tried to break up the organising meeting being held in a room of the local pub, Zum Wildschütz.

They came close to bankruptcy in 1929 when an attempt to boost the club's fortunes by signing some paid professional footballers failed miserably and left the team deep in debt.

Borussia's president was replaced when he refused to join the Nazi Party, and a couple of members who surreptitiously used the club's offices to produce anti-Nazi pamphlets were executed in the last days of the war.

The club did have greater success in the newly established Gauliga Westfalen, but would have to wait until after the Second World War to make a breakthrough.

Like every other organisation in Germany, Borussia was dissolved by the Allied occupation authorities after the war in an attempt to distance the country's institutions from its recent Nazi past.

In 1962, the DFB met in Dortmund and voted to establish a professional football league in Germany, to begin play in August 1963 as the Bundesliga.

Dortmund's Friedhelm Konietzka scored the first-ever Bundesliga goal a minute into the match, which they would eventually lose 2–3 to Werder Bremen.

In the same year, however, the team lost their top position on the Bundesliga by losing four of their last five league games and finishing second, three points behind champions 1860 München, most of whose success came on the strength of the play of Konietzka, recently transferred from Dortmund.

BVB avoided being relegated in 1986 by winning a third decisive playoff game against Fortuna Köln after finishing the regular season in 16th place.

In spite of this result, Borussia walked away with DM25 million under the prize money pool system in place at the time for German sides participating in the Cup.

With Zinedine Zidane unable to make an impression for Juventus against the close marking of Lambert,[14][15][16] Dortmund lifted the trophy with a 3–1 victory.

The situation was compounded by failure to advance in the 2003–04 UEFA Champions League, when the team was eliminated on penalties in the qualifying rounds by Club Brugge.

The team missed an opportunity to qualify for the Champions League when they did not beat eighth-place VfL Wolfsburg and 14th-place SC Freiburg in the final two matches of the campaign.

FC Nürnberg 2–0 at home, while second-place Bayer Leverkusen lost, leaving Dortmund eight points clear with two games to play.

Despite a promising start, however, their season saw injuries to several key players, seeing them stoop as low as fourth place in the table, and with a depleted squad could go only as far as the quarter-finals of the Champions League, losing 3–2 on aggregate to Real Madrid.

Nevertheless, Dortmund ended their season on a high note by finishing second in the Bundesliga and reaching the 2014 DFB-Pokal final, losing 0–2 to Bayern in extra time.

However, this victory did not affect the squad's solidity in performance at the start of the ensuing season, with Dortmund recording various[vague] results such as a 0–1 loss to Hamburger SV and two 2–2 draws against VfB Stuttgart and Bundesliga newcomers Paderborn 07.

[32] During the winter, Dortmund fell to the bottom of the table on multiple occasions, but escaped the relegation zone after four consecutive wins in February.

Under Terzić, Dortmund finished third on the final matchday of the Bundesliga and was eliminated in the quarter-finals of the Champions League in a match against Manchester City.

[53] Before the final match day of that season, Dortmund were top of the league table, though they later lost the Bundesliga title on goal difference to Bayern Munich after a 2–2 home draw against Mainz.

The partnership includes the use of high-reach advertising space, marketing rights as well as event and hospitality offers in the stadium and on the club premises and a payment of one million euro per year until 2027 by Rheinmetall.

[58] This name, however, could not be used when hosting FIFA and UEFA events, since these governing bodies have policies forbidding corporate sponsorship from companies that are not official tournament partners.

[65] In 2014, it was estimated that each of the club's home games was attended by around 1,000 British spectators, drawn to the team by its low ticket prices compared to the Premier League.

Ticket sales from the game and €1 million from Dortmund's main sponsor Evonik went to charity for Japan earthquake and tsunami victims.

[97] In November 2012, Borussia Dortmund KGaA founded a charitable trust called leuchte auf, to give important social projects financial help.

[99] In March 2020, Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig, and Bayer Leverkusen, the four German UEFA Champions League teams for the 2019–20 season, collectively gave €20 million to Bundesliga and 2.

[105][106] In July 1935, Fritz Thelen became the club's first full-time head coach, but was not available in the first months of the season, forcing Dortmund player and Germany international Ernst Kuzorra to take over instead.

Dortmund won the Intercontinental Cup in 1997 and head coach Nevio Scala became the first and, so far, only non-native speaker to win a major title.