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Sporting Kansas City homegrown player, Kevin Ellis, is still technically under contract with the club through the 2018 season after signing a new contract before the 2017, but an incident in September of last year saw Ellis and the team agreed that Ellis would take a leave of absence from the team. Ellis did not train with the club for the rest of the 2017 season and while he is on the club’s preseason roster has not been part of the club’s preparations for the 2018 MLS season.
Kansas City has tried to trade the club’s second ever homegrown player signing but no move has been made as of yet. That could be changing though as FC Dallas announced today that Ellis has joined the club on trial for preseason. Dallas coach, Oscar Pareja spoke highly about Ellis in comments he gave to the team’s story.
Over his seven seasons with the club, Ellis has made 68 appearances for the club in league play, 58 of those starts, and has scored five goals. He has another two appearances and a goal in the playoffs. Coming into the club as a wide forward, Ellis made the transition to right back for the club before finding most of his time on the field at center back. Ellis started a career high 26 games for KC at center back in 2015 when departures, injuries, and national team call ups left KC without a consistent center back pairing.
If Dallas wanted to acquire Ellis they would have to work out a trade with Kansas City to get his contract. While there seems to be interest the question of how much KC will actually be able to get from Dallas is a question to ask as the entire league knows the team wants him out, that he hasn’t been training with the team, and is no longer part of the club’s plans going forward. That could lead to a low offer coming in for the rights to Ellis. Getting something for Ellis is better than Kansas City having to consider using their one buyout of a guaranteed contract to get Ellis off their books for 2018, especially since the club is also still trying to move Soony Saad, who is also not with the club for preseason.