AVE MARIA, Fla. -- Major League Soccer officially announced the signing of former Fire midfielder Marco Pappa on Wednesday but according to Fire head coach and Director of Soccer Frank Yallop, the team isn’t any closer to bringing the Guatemalan international back to Chicago.
As the Fire sold Pappa to Dutch side Heerenveen in August 2012, he’s subject to the league’s allocation order where the Fire currently sit seventh. Seattle Sounders FC hold the top spot after Philadelphia used their allocation seeding to sign returning U.S. international Maurice Edu earlier this week.
Yallop and Technical Director Brian Bliss addressed the Pappa situation at a press conference last week with both intimating that the club had been in talks with Philadelphia and Seattle to move up the allocation order but what they had to give up to do so wasn’t something they were interested in.
“There’s no update [on Pappa],” Yallop told reporters on his weekly preseason conference call. “They want way too much for the value of that slot.”
Speculation about what Seattle may be asking the Fire for centers around attackers Patrick Nyarko, Dilly Duka or Chris Rolfe.
Yallop wouldn’t close the door completely on bringing Pappa back to Chicago but bluntly stated, “it doesn’t look good right now.”
“You never know in our league,” he said. “You never know in any situation things change very quickly. It’s not for a lack of trying, we’ve attempted to land him but it’s not being done right now.”
