Invests in the team financially, they pay to belong to the MLS and reap portions of revenues that go to MLS and other portions of merch, local tv deals, stadium and parking revenue directly or indirectly. They get to decide how much they want to invest in the team After the salary cap, GAM and TAM are taken into account. So your academy, front office, coaching staff, DP level players, travel and stadium expenses. They are the ones who decided where the resources are being placed.

They are in charge of the day to day operations, logistics of the salary cap, GAM, TAM usage, and player scouting talent pool and player acquisitions(contracts, negotiations, how they are placed onto the salary cap). They are responsible for finding players for coaches to scout farther and make the final decision on acquiring a player or not, depending on what the coaches want and ownership are willing to pay. By willingness to pay what are the terms of the deal. Is it a loan option,(where we are only responsible for the players Salary not a transfer fee) transfer option(agreeing on a payment for the rights to sign a player), or free transfer(only paying the salary part of a fee with no obligations after contract). The players that we are all complaining about were found and scouted through this department.

This one speaks for itself, but Olsen and company are responsible for getting the players that were deemed D.C. Quality players that were collectively agreed upon by the front office and coaching staff, to play together in a competitive manner. I am not taking responsibility off Olsen in saying they shouldn't be more competitive or that he also doesn't have a hand in deciding what players come to D.C. or not. However, they don't have the final say in who comes and goes. They work with what the front office gives them based on the front offices evaluation of the contract, player ability and ability to fit said contract into salary cap obligations correctly. Basically if you invest in bad players or the wrong players there is only so much a coaching staff can do to augment bad player acquisitions into a better on field product.

Lastly the players themselves have a responsibility in all of this, they go to work each week to play soccer. They are paid based off of there performances within the league or within the respective league they came from. If they are being overpaid, part of it is the responsibility of the coaching staff to get the best out of it, but the other part is for the player to do the best they can for the organization who is paying them. Where that stops and starts is grey and has been a debate since professional sports became a thing in this world.

Personally I believe the responsibility lays on all 4 different groups with, varying levels of responsibility. The top 2 are the front office and ownership, there inability to develop a better player talent pool is because of the ownerships unwillingness invest in this team, but kasper has been given 4-5 years as the head of player acquisition and has yet to develop any ability outside of the US market to find talent. This low cost and low risk policy on acquisition has led to the very up and down years D.C. United has become accustom to playing. Now the ownership has been unwilling to open up the checkbook to buy players of DP level status or develop a better academy program. This in my opinion is because the primary focus has been getting land for a stadium and then building said stadium. All the while paying a bunch of money at a complete loss to rent out a decrepit old stadium. So in someways as much as it's annoying to say, they can be excused somewhat for not trying to invest more in the on field product.

Now the coaching staff and players are responsible for the on-field product we see each and every week, but that is effected solely by how much the ownership is willing to invest in the team. If we all look back at last season before the Sam and Mullins pick ups, we were just as bad in many ways. Rarely creating good chances and even rarer was our ability to finish or win games. So while we should rightly get pissed at Olsen and comp. for not bringing the team up to last years standard, last years standard wasn't as high as the tail end of last years season.

I just want people to understand that while yes Olsen and comp have a part of the blame, Kasper and ownership have a far greater portion of blame for what we get to watch this year. I would ask you to think who would you rather get rid of today? Kasper or Olsen? In terms of value added to this team I would keep Olsen and ship Kasper, but what are y'alls thoughts?