This page has been reworked as a timeline dating back to when Castillo signed his new contract in 2015. It's in reverse order so as new info arrives it will appear at the top. Thanks to Arman Kafai for his assistance.

FC Dallas' star attacker, Fabian Castillo left his team in pursuit of a sale to the Turkish SüperLig club, Trabzonspor. Castillo missed practice, games and flew to Turkey without permission. He appeared all over Turkish social media including signing his personal contract. Problem is, FCD & MLS never agreed to terms with Trabzonspor. The dispute is over how Trabzonspor would pay the agreed to $4M transfer fee, in a single up front payment, or in two payments. MLS wants the up front, the Turkish club (rumored to be struggling financially, and under current UEFA sanctions) wants to break it up into two $2M payments over six months.

Thursday, August 4

This is the final update to this post and we'll have further coverage later today.

Castillo warming up with his new team before a pre-season friendly in Hungray (@tranbzonspor)

Castillo greets Lateral (@trabzonspor)

1:30pm - Trabzonspor tweets about as official statement as it gets, and Castillo plays in a pre-season friendly wearing #19 - all but confirming that an agreement was completed.

11:00am - Sources report the deal for Castillo to Trabzonspor is imminent and would expect official word from MLS and FC Dallas later today.

In retrospect, Castillo's agents made a risky, but smart call to have Fabian travel to Turkey, even without permission, as it gave them leverage the league and club found hard to overcome. Stand by as more details to come.

7:30am - Trabzonspor put on its official website a series of pics feature players and staff in Gyor, Hungry where the club is in the middle of pre-season training. One of those pics featured Castillo shaking hands with the team's coach, Ersun Lateral.

Guess Fab isn't playing in the CCL game tonight.

Wednesday, August 3

7:51pm - After all the noise from earlier today, all went quiet for the remainder of the day. Castillo is not back in Frisco, assumed to remain in Turkey and after a day of nothing more from the Trabzonspor VP, the last tweets from Castillo's agents were oddly different. Ramirez's interesting tweet of this Univision article - which largely recaps the events as we have heard, but doesn't not paint Castillo or his agents in a positive light and Diericx, who last tweeted Tuesday night (from Queens, NY) the following:

I promised good news and we will have good news. I can't share more for now, but all will be ok👍 — Sebastian Diericx (@sdiericx) August 3, 2016

There is no further information from FC Dallas or MLS and at this point its anyone's best guess how this plays out. For now FCD and Pareja have a CCL game Thursday night to worry about, without Castillo.

8:01am - Aydin tweets in response to a Colombian report Castillo's agent was returning to Turkey to complete the deal with, (loosely translated) "old news, we made a deal at 5am this morning".

7:10am - It's the sale that won't die. What follows are the tweets of the VP of the Board at Trabzonspor, Nevzat Aydin (@zagortenay76). He's been tweeting a lot in the last day, much of which claims the deal to sign Castillo is imminent. In a series of tweets, which have his location tagged in LA (because, he claims they're interested in the Galaxy's Gyasi Zardes), he late last night tweeted (loosely translated) "Good news this time really is on the way. We've working on this for two and a half months. It's almost done." This morning he tweeted a pic of him and Castillo together (no date given) with the claim Castillo will be joining the team in Hungry and expects the signing to finalize by Friday. A loose translation of another tweet is he thinks the deal is 99% complete and there are no problems. Going through the timeline there is a series of his tweets responding to fans, none of which make the absolute claim the deal is done, but repeatedly suggests it will be, and soon. Interestingly related, a bit of searching turns up recent stories in the Turkish press with Aydin discussing the poor state of Trabzonspor's financial state.

Fabian Castillo bu akşam kampa katılıyor. MLS imzası Cuma'yı bulur. Topla beraber rakibin içinden geçecek umarım. :) pic.twitter.com/YTkwwFjyNC — Nevzat Aydın (@zagortenay76) August 3, 2016

Tuesday, August 2 -

9:13PM - Castillo's agent Ramierz tweets he's returning to Turkey and sounding oddly vague

Regresando de NY a Estambul/Turquia y mirando cosas muy positivas para Fabian Castillo en su trabajo como futbolista. — Raul Ramirez (@Raulfdoramirez) August 3, 2016

rough translation: "Back from NY to Istanbul/Turkey and looking at things very positive to Fabian Castillo in his work as a soccer player."

Trabzonspor seems to think they are back in it. Here's a tweet from their official account.

rough translation: "Professional footballer Fabian Castillo Club transfer Football Club and began negotiations with Major League Soccer."

It's now Tuesday and Castillo's Colombian agent still seems to be at work.

rough translation: He says, "Entering the third meeting of the MLS Office in NY for sale to Turkey of the Fabian Castillo Sr soccer theme." He doesn't seem to want to give up.

Monday, August 1 - 1:52 pm For the first time FC Dallas puts statement in writing, via Twitter account.

So MLS and FCD clearly saying Castillo will come back stateside. Castillo's agents and Trabzonspor clearly still trying to get the deal done.

Fabian Castillo's agent, Raul Ramirez (pictured above) tried this morning to resurrect the deal.

"I'm in New York at the office of the MLS, confirming the sale of Mr. Castillo to Turkey that had been agreed with the FC Dallas/MLS." So Castillo, through his agent, is still very much trying to get this deal done this morning.

In addition to the agent tweet, Colombia reporter Carlos Arturo Arango said Castillo was still in Turkey. He had multiple tweets with info about the situation.

The tweets say, in order...

"Fact: Fabian castle stayed in Turkey; your representative is today in Miami in

, agreed business although it seems they give up sales."

"The representative says that it's too late now, that

approved sale of Fabian Castillo to

of Turkey,

does not want to sell."

And "Although the representative is in Miami today speaking to the

Fabian Castillo stayed in Turkey at

"

After the agent tweet was quoted by several other people, our 3rd Degree twitter account was hit by multiple Trukish fans saying Trabzonspor was claiming in Turkey that they made the $4 million payment. The best we can find on that is on a Trabzonspor fan group facebook page which has a quote from Castillo and cites someone as saying the money would be sent tomorrow.

Facebook translates that as "Castillo: MLS me telling to go back to Dallas I practice I wouldn't even get out I'm here I'm here for trabzonspor. Trabzonspor's will solve this job, I'm sure."

And "Fabian Castillo's money tomorrow morning at 09:00 and tomorrow will be invested in the player will be informed to the pot! (net information) The news is that the money!" Which of course isn't very clear when auto translated.

Then we heard again from this side of the pond, this time from Jeff Carlisle of ESPN.

So MLS and FC Dallas say no deal. And we wait again.

I guess we'll know for sure when Castillo takes the field for FC Dallas.

Maybe.

Update: Castillo agent still in New York trying to force the move.

"Leaving the first meeting with the MLS... in the next few hours I will have another meeting."

And apparently Castillo has a US based agent as well, Sebastian Diericx, CEO of STMG.

Again Jeff Carlisle...

Muharrem Usta, the Chairman of Trabzonspor, went on the radio in Turkey and we were tweeted this translation of what he said. (What a world we live in now.) Given it's second hand radio translated to English from Turkish, take it with a grain of salt.

Sunday, July 31 - ESPN's Taylor Twellman reports that the Castillo deal is dead. A team spokesman tells the media that they expect Castillo to return back to the team prior to Dallas' 2-0 win over Vancouver. While FC Dallas never releases an official statement or press release, this news is confirmed on both the club's TV and radio game day productions just after kickoff. Head coach Oscar Pareja addresses the situation during his postgame press conferences, saying that no deal has been reached and that Castillo would be welcomed back with open arms.

Friday, July 29 - Straus reports that Castillo's salary is actually around $700,000 per year, conflicting with the MLSPU salary report number of $170,750, which is posted online for the public to see.

Wednesday, July 27 - Videos and pictures arise from Turkey, where Trabzonspor supporters are scence lifting Castillo onto their shoulders, taking pictures, and chanting his name.

Monday, July 25 - Sports Illustrated's Brian Straus reports the details of Castillo's transfer. The Turkish club would pay Dallas $2 million dollars for Castillo to join the team now, and then would have to pay another $2 million dollars before or during January of 2017, in order to permanently bring Castillo over.

Sunday, July 24 - Castillo and agent leave from DFW International airport for Turkey, both without permission from FC Dallas or MLS and with the knowledge there was not an agreement in place between MLS and Trabzonspor.

Saturday, July 23- Dallas takes on Colorado on the road, drawing 1-1. Castillo was not named in the 18, increasing speculation that the Colombian was on his way out.

Friday, July 22 - Goal.com's Ives Galarcep reports that Castillo is the subject of a $3-4 million dollar bid from Trabzonspor and that the teams were close to nearing an agreement. Also this is the day Straus reports Castillo first skipped a training session and misses plane to Denver. (there are also unsubstantiated reports Castillo failed to show for team meetings on Thursday too)

Wednesday, July 20 - Castillo scores the game winning goal in Dallas' 1-0 win over Houston in the U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals.

June 24, 2016- Rumors came out that Turkish club Trabzonspor had placed a bid of 1.2 million Euros for Castillo. Technical director Fernando Clavijo says that no deal is in place, but many teams have been inquiring about Castillo.

February 9th, 2015- Fabian Castillo signs a new five year extension with FC Dallas after a career best season, scoring 10 goals during the 2013-2014 season.