Turmoil At The HDC?

By: NathanHJ | August 4th, 2008

Sam, commenting in this post, reprints portions of an SI.com article from Jonah Freedman, which goes in-depth on some of the goings-on in the wake of the recent miserable performance of the Los Angeles Galaxy on the field. I figured this kind of this deserves its own posting.

Here’s how the article starts:

The soap opera that is the Los Angeles Galaxy just gets weirder and weirder.

A source close to Major League Soccer’s glamour franchise tells me that Tim Leiweke, president and CEO of Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns the Galaxy, made an unannounced visit to the team’s locker room this past week and issued a grim ultimatum: Get things on the right track in the next two weeks or there will be dire consequences.

Like what kinds of consequences? Canning head coach Ruud Gullit? Cleaning house, perhaps starting with Landon Donovan? Firing team president and GM Alexi Lalas?

If I were a betting man, I’d say all three are possibilities, in increasing order of their likelihood. Leiweke rarely appears in front of the team, but when he does, the aftermath is never good. The AEG boss last addressed the Galaxy collectively last September as the team was similarly struggling, and within two months, former head coach Frank Yallop was out the door.

And here’s one more nugget:

And the reports of unrest keep getting worse and worse as more details emerge about the state of dysfunction within the Galaxy. According to the Los Angeles Daily News, the finger-pointing has reached critical mass: Gullit and Lalas reportedly don’t get along and the Beckham camp is quickly calling more of the shots within the organization.

My quick takes are:

-If I were a firing man, and let me emphasize that I have first hand knowledge of none of this, don’t know any of the people involved, have no idea what Lalas’ GM style is or how Gullit actually coaches, and don’t understand the decision-making structure of the Galaxy and AEG, if I were a firing man, I’d start with Lalas, as the GM.

-So far I’ve been impressed with Gullit’s futbol IQ and I’m never a fan of canning a coach in mid-season of his first two years. I do have a Steve Sampson exception, though.

-Here’s what worries me the most: David Beckham and his organization having more and more say over the management of the club. I get a bit anxious when players have control over any personnel moves at any level in a club. It’s a bad way to distribute power in that is screws up the lines of accountability. And it reminds me of Giorgio Chinaglia.

What do ya’ll think? Does the team need this kind of shake-up? How about Beckham’s growing front office power? And what about the fact of Leiweke’s ultimatums that seem to ignore the reality of the salary cap, roster size, and, frankly, level of talent of available personnel?