Photo: Courtesy of Jonathan Tannenwald

Sixty-three percent of you want Nick Sakiewicz fired as Philadelphia Union’s chief executive, according to a PSP poll.

Nearly 600 Philadelphia soccer observers voted in the poll, which had some other damning findings for Sakiewicz, including:

62% gave Sakiewicz a grade of D or F during his tenure as CEO;

73% blame Sakiewicz for the Union’s collapse;

98% believe he should have nothing to do with player personnel moves.

As the Union limp into the offseason with as many problems and question marks as they’ve ever had, Sakiewicz is the man to whom most want to affix blame. They identify Sakiewicz as the key common thread throughout the Union’s first five years, and when they observe the dysfunction endemic to the club, they point to Sakiewicz.

They’re right, of course, but only to a degree.

Has Sakiewicz made mistakes? Most definitely.

Has he done some things right? For sure.

But Sakiewicz has one major, major problem:

Many Union observers just don’t trust him.

On one day, Sakiewicz may bluntly articulate some remarkably insightful viewpoints on why familiarity with MLS is important for new MLS coaches or be the first top executive to call out Toronto FC for their spendthrift ways, and people will love it.

Then another day, he’ll say something just patently unbelievable. That’s a fairly unacceptable sin in a straight-talking, blue-collar place like Philadelphia.

Anyone who thought the buck stopped with Jim Curtin on the Rais Mbolhi signing is delusional. You don’t need inside knowledge to determine that isn’t true. What team would let an interim coach make the final call on a major signing to replace a good, young starter? None.

Hence, his distancing from the Mbolhi signing comes across as disingenuous.

And indeed, I found a fan wearing a t-shirt that reads "#SakOut'" pic.twitter.com/Tqwm7dGzbr — Jonathan Tannenwald (@thegoalkeeper) October 19, 2014

Who really determines Union personnel moves

It isn’t fair to assign full credit or blame to Sakiewicz for all the Union’s signings.

The fact is that prior Union managers Peter Nowak and John Hackworth wielded a fair amount of autonomy with player personnel, and things are different now because there is an interim manager.

Nowak basically had complete control over football matters. That’s why he was able to abuse the system by allegedly trying to profit personally from transfers. What people forget is that Nowak’s pre-Union coaching reputation — he won the MLS Cup and Supporters Shield and coached the 2008 Olympic team — and early success with the Union in 2011 probably warranted that autonomy.

Nowak’s successor, Hackworth, had less freedom, but the Union’s player acquisitions were basically his moves. He constructed most of the Union team you’re watching. Cristian Maidana was Hackworth’s signing. Maurice Edu came to the club’s through his shared University of Maryland connection with Rob Vartughian. Hackworth grabbed Conor Casey after Danny Califf vouched for him. Danny Cruz was a Hackworth guy going back to his time as a youth international. And so on.

Sakiewicz had final approval on Hackworth’s acquisitions. He may not have initiated the moves, but Sakiewicz could approve or stop a deal, either by actively making a decision or passively letting a deal wither away. For example, Hackworth wanted Califf back from Toronto, Califf wanted to return, Toronto wanted to trade him, but no deal was struck. A little creativity should have solved that one. Rumor also had it that Sakiewicz vetoed Hackworth’s efforts to reacquire Jordan Harvey, but I never confirmed that to be true. The buck stopped with Sakiewicz, or at least somewhere at the ownership level.

Is that a bad setup? No, it’s not, particularly after Nowak’s abusive reign. That is basically as it should be, structurally speaking. Whether Sakiewicz made bad calls is another issue altogether.

This isn’t to say that Sakiewicz didn’t get involved in negotiations. He did, though not always in an integral fashion. Sometimes, he was truly out of the loop. When he told me in March 2013 that the Union didn’t ask Freddy Adu to take a pay cut, he was probably wrong, not lying, as many thought. (Many probably thought he lied because he was caught in some … let’s call it “creative explanation” in that same interview regarding tax payments to the city of Chester.) I was told privately that Sakiewicz simply didn’t know or remember.

Sakiewicz played a key part in closing the deal on the acquisitions of Edu and Vincent Nogueira.

With Edu, that role was very public: Sakiewicz traveled to England with much fanfare to close the deal. But Hackworth and Vartughian knew Edu wanted to come to Philadelphia before anyone else in MLS even knew he was available, and they got that ball rolling.

To lock down Nogueira, Sakiewicz and then-assistant coach Brendan Burke traveled to France to meet with the midfielder while Hackworth was at the MLS draft combine in Florida. Nogueira was no grand scouting find either. He basically fell into the Union’s lap after deciding he wanted to play in America, and the Union were smart to sign him.

Sakiewicz deserves credit for his part on those two deals, but only part. They were team efforts.

Why blame Sakiewicz for Mbolhi and the Union’s collapse?

So why does he get blamed more for Mbolhi?

Because no interim manager wields enough clout to sign a player like that six months after you trade for the top pick in the draft to acquire a goalkeeper and when you still have a third guy who is your deserved starter. This is doubly the case when you consider that Mbolhi said he had been talking with the club since January. Was he talking to Curtin? Doubtful. Sakiewicz is the point of continuity there, although Mbolhi obviously could have been talking to Hackworth too.

But really, Sakiewicz gets blamed for the general malaise surrounding the team and the dissatisfaction that they are not a major club on par with Seattle or Los Angeles.

On the field, it’s not Sakiewicz’s fault the Union started the season so poorly. He and the team’s ownership gave Hackworth the leeway to build a talented team, and Hackworth did. The key points of failure came on the field, primarily in the team’s failure to hold leads late in games. But Mbolhi’s arrival definitely didn’t help matters, and his howler against Chicago will remembered for a long time because it began the collapse that was completed the next game against Columbus.

Off the field, fans are just tired of losing. They’re tired of unnecessary drama, like the Nowak controversies, the unnecessary and misguided benching of Zac MacMath, and the likely impending departure of fan favorite Amobi Okugo. They just want a team they can like in all facets, complete with players that they like, just like they did before Nowak savaged that innocent love for the brand new home team. They want their favorite players to stop leaving. They lost Brian Dawkins well before they should have, and now you’re going to take Amobi Okugo too? It’s not fair, they think.

Sakiewicz knows enough about MLS to be a very good executive. He’s smart and well-spoken and understands the sport and league.

What he misses now is a charismatic front man like former Union president Tom Veit, who recognized it’s equally important for your fans to actually like you and your team.