Sporting KC Protection List for Expansion Draft Announced

The MLS offseason tends to move quickly after the Final. The front offices get no rest. Plenty of roster moves will be announced in the coming days. Sporting KC has already announced a few, one being the Benny Feilhaber contract extension. Another, was Peter Vermes’ own contract extension.

Now that the 2016 season is over, the league turns its focus to 2017. With the addition of Minnesota United FC and Atlanta United FC, comes the lovely expansion draft. Each team is allowed to protect 11 players that do not meet the “exempt” list qualifications.

Sporting KC have a core that is ready to compete and win in 2016, so there are plenty of players they must protect. Here is the list of Sporting KC Players protected for the expansion draft: Saad Abdul-Salaam, Matt Besler, Dom Dwyer, Roger Espinoza, Benny Feilhaber, Jimmy Medranda, Tim Melia, Soni Mustivar, Ike Opara, Diego Rubio, and Graham Zusi. In addition to that, Kevin Ellis, Jon Kempin, Erik Palmer-Brown, and Daniel Salloi are all exempt from the expansion draft.

Those who are now unprotected: Nuno Coelho, Connor Hallisey, Justin Mapp, Chance Meyers, Lawrence Olum, Jacob Peterson, Cameron Porter, Seth Sinovic, Ever Alvarado, Emmanuel Appiah, Benji Joya, and Alec Kann. Brad Davis and Paulo Nagamura are both available for selection, but their retirement decisions have been well documented. Jacob Peterson, Chance Meyers and Justin Mapp are all free agents this season as well.

Per the Expansion draft rules, once a player is selected, that team cannot lose another player. With each team only able to pick five players in the expansion draft, only ten of the teams will lose a player. With this list, it is unlikely that any will be selected by either team.

Other Sporting Notes

Today, it was announced that Paulo Nagamura would retire from playing, and immediately join Swope Park Rangers, Sporting KC’s USL affiliate, as an assistant on the coaching staff. Nagamura has been a part of the league since 2005, winning MLS Cups with the Galaxy (2005) and Sporting KC (2013). He also won the US Open Cup three times and has 269 career appearances in MLS.