I’ll admit to being naive. I genuinely thought there was a chance that when Chris Klein’s contract expired this year, the Los Angeles Galaxy might actually let him go. When it was revealed the club had cheated under his watch (and in spectacular “Galaxy-under-Klein” fashion, still failed regardless), that he himself would be suspended, & the club sanctioned as a result, I even let myself believe it was a distinct possibility.
The expiration date came and went. No word from the LAG font office. That in itself tells us that Dan Beckerman & AEG knew this would be an unpopular decision. Otherwise they’d have probably got the Galaxy media team to put out a video clip of him dressed as Caesar with a cheesy caption, like “Just like the salad, awesome & good for you!”. But nope. This was more like a teenager climbing through their bedroom window in the small hours so nobody knew they broke curfew.
But they didn’t reckon on the narc younger sibling of this metaphor, one Kevin Baxter! How AEG must have loathed the invention of the printing press, as Baxter, a known journalist covering MLS in the Los Angeles area, confirmed what was already becoming increasingly obvious: Chris Klein had received a contract extension, after all!
As thousands of palms met thousands of faces around the Greater Los Angeles Area, the Supporters Groups reacted. They were going to boycott until Klein was fired.
I’ll grant you, maybe we should have started the boycott in the year before Klein’s extension. Maybe we all should’ve known that our complaints about the frequent failures, were falling on deaf ears. Maybe we collectively didn’t do enough, soon enough.
However, while the SGs seem fairly united on this stance, the reaction from some other quarters of the fan base has been frankly shocking.
Apparently, a decade of abject failure on the pitch, the crumbling of what is arguably the most iconic & important club in MLS history, a pathetically easy incursion by a ‘new’ LA club ceding ample market share of the available fan base, & now flagrant cheating, isn’t a bad enough track record to be done with a club president.
And while it pains me to do so, let us focus on LA’s newest MLS franchise, the league’s new darlings, & the thing I suspect Mrs Twellman is most often asked to roleplay as; Los Angeles Football Club.
Y’see, you can claim (as seems to be Beckerman & AEG’s mindset) that Chris Klein is only on the periphery of team decisions & that his overall job is the business side. You may even point to the balance sheet, shrug & say “hey, we’re an MLS team that’s making money”. That all falls apart though, when a team with a massive payroll, the most successful in league history, so iconic that if a 30+ year old international player of more-than-moderate fame, even sneezes in a way that sounds like “Major League Soccer”, they get linked with them, struggles to retain prominence against a team that’s barely taken the field. Fast forward a few years & that team’s winning silverware, while the Galaxy slaps about like the former occupant of a spilled goldfish bowl. You’ve got Alexi Lalas & Taylor Twellman groaning hornily about how LAFC are winning the “war for relevance” on every MLS broadcast. So do tell me more about the sterling work that Klein is doing on the commercial side.
Then there’s the most prominent excuse for why we ought not boycott: the golden, magical, orgasmic era that was LA Galaxy’s end to the 2022 regular season! A hallowed period where the Galaxy were “okay”, “didn’t suck” & “won some games”. Where people talked in hushed tones about this new wunderkind, Riqui Puig, who had defied all expectations by not just being a lazy prima dona, playing in MLS for a sulk & a paycheck.
This gave rise to the proclamation “we’re moving in the right direction, why would you want to boycott now???”.
The Galaxy’s has just recorded their worst ever start to a a season.
Look, if you want to attend games, I respect your decision. Please respect mine to boycott. I’ll be honest, I’m one of the schmucks that’s doing so, despite having renewed my season tickets (something a lot of people didn’t do last season). I’ll be honest: I’m doing it in part out of reaction to the contract renewal, in part with solidarity with the SGs & in part because frankly, outside ditching the season tickets, I don’t know what else will send the message.
Should we have done it sooner? Probably but hindsight is 20/20. Are AEG going to dig in hard before buying out Klein’s new contract? Of course. Will it succeed? Who knows?
But right now it’s something. And the message is now being seen around the league that all is not well at the LA Galaxy. This might not work. But if it doesn’t, AEG might do well to consider what kind of club this is, when those that support it are ultimately ignored.
I’d warn them sternly about not treating fans as mere customers that can be replaced with promotions & beer packages. Customers you see, care about the product. They aren’t unconditionally loyal. You’ve got a rival that knows how to market & is delivering a winning team. That’s without looking at the smorgasbord of better soccer to be had around the world.
I intend to boycott while the SGs persist. Because while I want to be at the game, I want my club to be handled in a way that is befitting, far far more.
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