You thought Kevin Payne was insightful yesterday? Perhaps at least interesting, right? Well, D.C. United owner Will Chang sat down with two reporters before tonight’s match against Kansas City.
Overall thoughts on United’s struggles:
“It’s disappointing. It’s painful. This is like your kid going through hard times. I lose sleep over it. Look, I’m feeling the pain like everybody else around here. In this league, when we have a salary cap, and there’s parity, when you have injuries, you always become non-competitive. At one point in time, we had as many as nine guys [injured]. We have a half a dozen guys [now], but those half a dozen guys that are out right now are key players.”
On support for Payne, head coach Curt Onalfo and general manager Dave Kasper:
“I’m not going to hand it over to Curt or Dave or Kevin. I’ve been involved in every single major decision so I’m actively involved. I talk to Dave and Kevin almost on a daily basis so look, the buck stops here. I’m going to say, hey, the team’s not performing well. We’re going to fire this person or that person. I take just as much blame, and I’ve been involved in every single major decision. Curt’s in charge of the starting linesup, he bounces it off of me. I don’t know enough to provide him counter arguments why he should or shouldn’t be doing something, but I talk to him regularly.
Look, I take just as much responsibility for the poor performance of the team. I feel very sorry for our fans. I read the blogs. I read the comments on the blogs. I go and look at what the fans are saying in the BigSoccer chat rooms, and I read the Twitter comments. All I can say is, look, I feel the pain. I share the pain. I know our guys are doing all they can to get through this rough patch, but again, we’ve been unlucky with the number of injuries.”
Chang pointed to the preseason win over Santos Laguna on Mexican soil and the Charleston Cup title, both of which were achieved with a healthy roster:
“I think if we’re all full strength, we’ll be very competitive. But at one point in time, we had nine guys out. We have a half a dozen guys out. Having said that, are we doing something to shore it up? Absolutely. We’re just not sitting around crying and waiting for something good to happen or praying something will happen.”
On the current scouting developments:
“We’re looking at a couple of guys very, very seriously to bring in and act as support and make our team better at the summer transfer window. We’re going to have [technical director] Chad [Asthon] go to Europe and Africa to do some more scouting. That’s a position that we didn’t have. That’s a position that we added, and again, in a salary cap environment, I feel that the team that invests in scouting and resources that are not part of the salary cap are going to be, in the long run, competitive. I think we have a very, very good support system in our organization.”
Will United sign a designated player?
“We’re looking. I’m not going to say we will. There’s some folks in our organization that have been a little bit more, how do I say, firm in their statements. I’m not going to make a promise, but we’re seriously at looking at players, and whether that additional support that we bring in during the summer transfer window ends up being a DP or not, time will only tell. Even during my tenure, we’ve gone after a number of players, and you just have to be at the right place at the right time. It’s not one of these things where, just because you want somebody, you can get somebody. If you’re in England and you have an environment where all it took was just a bigger checkbook, sure, you can do a transfer any time. But we have a very complicated system where we have a salary cap, and the rules of the salary cap and all the rules with regards to the designated player makes it very, very complicated. If you have a player, you have to kind of make it fit within the rules of MLS, and it’s not necessarily an easy thing to do.”
What about the Thierry Henry rumor?
“I read the posting that was made on the New York Post, and I can categorically say there are certain things in that article that are baseless and false.” [I think we can assume he meant this story.]
As for Henry?
“It would be highly unlikely that we would bring him in. Read into that however you want.”
Because he’s going to New York?
“No comment.”
Chang’s take on attendance issues:
“I think it is partly the product on the field. I read that in the blogs. I read that in the chat rooms. Our fans are not happy. I’m going to go and talk to the fans in Lot 8, and I’m sure they have a lot of questions. Now’s not the time for me to duck from the press. It’s not time for me to duck questions from my fans. I think the fans are disappointed. I am, too. But also, the poor attendance on Saturday and poor attendance today is a function of Saturday at 4 o’clock is a crazy time. If we had our choice, we would have never played at 4 o’clock. Telefutura wanted us to play at that time, and we have a league contract, and we have to do what they want us to do. It wasn’t our choice, and I think 4 o’clock is a terrible time for us to play. We’ve always not gone well in midweek games. But I think it’s a combination. Again, I feel that the fans – we have the best fans in our league, and once we get back on track, which I’m confident we will, I think the fans will start coming back, particularly on Saturday evening games, when they can enjoy their tailgate and enjoy the game. It’s a temporary setback. I don’t think it’s a permanent setback.”
As for the team’s pursuit of a stadium, Chang went back to the story he told me at the team’s kickoff luncheon, comparing his situation to that of former San Francisco Giants owner Bob Lurie.
“The moral of the story is that Bob Lurie, as one individual, could not get done what 30 individuals have been able to do. I feel that I’m in the same boat. I don’t think I can get a stadium done here D.C. by myself. I really need help from local investors, and I need local partners who can go out and be goodwill ambassadors in the community, amongst the political establishment to help us get a stadium so I’m actively looking and talking to prospective local investors, and I’m cautiously optimistic that within the next month or two, I would have a number of people that might join me in the ownership group.”
How does it affect the stadium pursuit?
“It’s the chicken or the egg comes first. Do I get a location and deal done without local partners? Or do I find local partners and they help me find the location and they help me negotiate the deal and they become the goodwill ambassadors with the community and local establishment here. At the end of the day, I’m not local. I’m not familiar with the politics of this town, and I’m not known in the community. I don’t know the business or political establishment here. I really need partners who can go out and be the face of the franchise as far as an ownership group, and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m actively looking, and I’ve hired an investment banker to find me those local investors.”
Would Chang move the team?
“Let me just categorically state that I’m not where Bob Lurie was in 1992 when he said, ‘You know what, nobody in this town loves me. Nobody in this town is willing to step up, and nobody is willing to come and help me.’ I’m not finding that. I’m talking to a lot of local, prominent business people who have expressed a strong interest to participate. So I’m not there yet.”
“I have a strong desire to keep the team in D.C., if for nothing else, it’s because I have businesses in Japan. I have businesses in India. I have businesses in China. Everywhere I go, people know where Washington, D.C. is, and I’m not quite sure people know where necessarily some of the other cities around our community are. Does it make sense for me to be here? Absolutely. If for nothing else, I want to be recognized as the soccer team in the nation’s capital. I was in Madrid this past fall. It’s the team in the [U.S.] capital, the team in the [Spanish] capital, and I’m taken as [Real Madrid president] Mr. [Florentino] Perez’s counterpart. If I’m from a small city, they’re not going to care who I am. It makes a big difference.”
As for how the D.C. elections might impact the stadium search:
“I don’t really want to be part of an election issue, and I sincerely hope the mayoral candidates do not make us an election issue.”
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