A move long desired by the fanbase and one that carried a sense of inevitability finally came to fruition on Tuesday.
The Galaxy announced that Chris Klein, who had been team president since 2013, had been dismissed from his role effective immediately. The move comes as the once-proud franchise are currently sitting at the bottom the Western Conference with a 3-9-3 record and 12 points, which leave them tied with the Colorado Rapids for last place in the conference.
“As a Club we have not achieved our goals or met the standard that we have established for the LA Galaxy,” said Dan Beckerman, president and CEO of Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns the Galaxy. “We believe it is in the best interest of the Club to make a change and begin a comprehensive process to seek new leadership that will return the Club to the level that our fans and partners expect. We are thankful to Chris for his years of dedication and commitment to the LA Galaxy as both a player and an executive.”
Klein became team president prior to the 2013 season as the franchise was in the midst of a fabulous run in the league. The Galaxy were coming off back-to-back MLS Cup titles and were regarded as the class of the league. The team’s stellar run continued under Klein, as the team made the playoffs four more times and won another championship in 2014. However, things started going south once Bruce Arena, the Galaxy’s head coach and general manager, left the team after the 2016 season for a second stint as head coach of the U.S. National Team. Klein has since struggled to replicate the success the team had under Arena, as the Galaxy have gone through three different executives and six different coaches, and the instability in both the front office and more importantly, the coaching sidelines, have had a negative effect on the field, as the Galaxy have qualified for the playoffs just twice over the previous six seasons. The team’s slide from the class of MLS to an also-ran could not have come at a worse time for the Galaxy, as cross-town rival LAFC entered the league in 2018 and in a relatively short amount of time, won two Supporters Shields, an MLS Cup, and is currently in its second CONCACAF Champions League final, and LAFC’s success has vaulted them ahead of the Galaxy as far as status in both Los Angeles and MLS.
Things finally came to a head as far as the team’s supporters groups were concerned, prior to the season. In January, the team was punished heavily for violations dating back to Cristian Pavon’s signing with the team in the Summer of 2019. When Pavon first signed with the Galaxy, the team had tried to designate him as a Targeted Allocation Money signing, as the team at the time had already had its three DP spots occupied in Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Jonathan Dos Santos, and Romain Alessandrini. However, the league found out that the Galaxy did not have enough TAM money in 2019 to classify Pavon, who was believed to be making $1.2 million that season, as a TAM signing, meaning the Galaxy would have had to move either Ibrahimovic, Dos Santos or Alessandrini to make room for Pavon.
The penalties imposed on the Galaxy were harsh. The team was fined $1 million, lost an additional $1 million of General Allocation Fund money and the team will be prohibited from registering a player who requires the receipt of an International Transfer Certificate (ITC) from outside of the United States and Canada during the Secondary Transfer Window this summer, a development that will surely hamper the team’s ability to improve the remainder of the season. In addition, Dennis te Klose, the team’s GM at the time of the Pavon signing, will have to submit an application to the commissioner’s office if he wishes to work in MLS again, and Klein was suspended throughout the the winter transfer window.
The penalties combined with the team’s recent struggles turned out to be more than enough for the Galaxy’s three main supporters groups, the Angel City Brigade, the LA Riot Squad and the Galaxians, as all three groups launched a boycott of the team’s home matches, vowing to stay way until Klein was out. The ACB eventually did return to Dignity Health Sports Park starting on May 3, though they still chanted for Klein’s ouster, and recently, after the team lost to Charlotte FC, the ACB and several Galaxy players engaged after the match in what were described as “honest conversations.”
