D.C. United president Kevin Payne and general manager Dave Kasper addressed the media at RFK Stadium today following the team's decision to fire coach Curt Onalfu. A full transcript can be found here, via Steven Goff, but the most interesting lines came from Payne:
Payne said the team had "no choice" but to fire Onalfu, adding that he does not like firing coaches in the middle of the season.
I don't think it's ordinarily a very good practice, and we've tried in the past when we have had situations where we weren't sure if things weren't going the right way, we were able to gut it out and see it through until the end of the season. But I just felt that the way things were going now that we really had no alternative but to make this move at this time.
Payne also admitted it certainly looked the players tuned out Onalfu this season, and added that one of interim coach Ben Olson's goals has to be to restore the pride of wearing the D.C. United uniform.