World Cup won’t come to Chicago in ’26; truly is our city's sporting loss

International soccer fans will get excited for the next month beginning Thursday, what with the World Cup tourney (played every four years) beginning with host nation Russia taking on the national team of Saudi Arabia.

We won't get a 2026 sequel … 

Considering that the U.S. national team didn’t play well enough in qualifying rounds to get a spot in this year’s World Cup, I expect that many U.S. fans will try to downplay the significance of the event and will focus their attention on 2026 – when the tourney will be played on the North American continent.

SOCCER FANS OF this nation will be able to see World Cup matches without having to make international trips – except those of us from Chicago.

For the North American host effort (which will have opening matches in Mexico and Canada along with quarterfinals matches in other cities and the championship game possibly in the New York metropolitan area) is bypassing the Second City.

Not that this is a surprise. Back in March, city officials said they didn’t want to cooperate with the demands of FIFA (the international association that governs soccer around the world) in order to be considered as a host city. They also have memories of U.S. Soccer Federation officials being less-than-respectful to bids to include Chicago in U.S. World Cup presentations for other years past.

Of course, anybody who pays attention to the world of international soccer knows that FIFA is the kind of organization that expects everybody to cater to it (to kiss its fat behind with a symbolic big, wet sloppy smooch). Chicago didn’t want to do so – so we’re out.

THOSE OF US from Chicago will have to settle for the play of the Chicago Fire (and possibly that new team to be created to play in a stadium to be built somewhere on the city’s North Side). Either that, or travel to places like Kansas City, Cincinnati or Nashville – the places under consideration for matches that are closest to Chicago.

Either that, or we’ll have to relive the memories of 1994 – which was the only other time the World Cup tourney was played in the United States.

… to the 1994 World Cup opening ceremonies, which were held at Soldier Field

That year, the championship game was in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, with semi-final games in Washington, D.C. and New York. But the opening ceremonies of the month-long event, along with the initial matches, were played right in Soldier Field.

As in the aging stadium on the lakefront that had significant historic character; not the current structure with the spaceship-like structure built within its outer walls.

BUT THIS TIME around, we won’t be a part of the international spectacle – which likely is the lasting aftermath of the 2016 Olympic affair.

Remember how then-Mayor Richard M. Daley was all anxious to have the Summer Olympic Games for that year held in Chicago, only to have the International Olympic Committee prefer the thought of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro. And the thought of Chicago finishing fourth out of the four finalist cities?

Our political people felt burned by the world of international sports, and it seems Rahm Emanuel had no desire for a repeat. Which means we won’t be a part of the spectacle, while places like Edmonton (in Alberta, Canada) and Orlando (the home of Mickey Mouse) will be.

The other three times ...

We’ll most likely have to settle for watching the spectacle on television, just as we’ll be doing for the next month.

AND WITHOUT THE U.S. national team’s involvement, I’m sure the level of xenophobic nonsense from NASCAR fans trying to claim that Southerners driving cars around an asphalt track is a significant sporting event will rise to all-time highs in coming weeks.

… the World Cup came ...

If anything, that aspect if part of what intrigues me about international soccer – a significant athletic spectacle (you try running up and down a pitch for 90-plus minutes at a time) that manages to infuriate some so significantly.

… to the North American continent

It was nice (sort of) to see President Donald Trump use one of his less-noxious Tweets to say a continental World Cup was a wonderful spectacle.

Although I also have to admit a more pleasing notion is that Trump’s presidency will be long over by the time the 2026 World Cup is actually staged – all the more reason our society should look forward to the event.

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Credit for, or conniving by, Madigan?

It hasn’t even been a full week since the Illinois House Democrats had to fire its long-time chief of staff because of behavior considered by some to be demeaning to women; yet da Dems already have a replacement in place and the new caucus operative is a “she.”

MADIGAN: Does he deserve blame, or praise?

Is that evidence House Speaker Michael Madigan (also the Illinois Democratic chairman) is a conniving political operator masterful in covering his own behind? Or someone who addressed a problem in a prompt manner?

I’M SURE THE way one views this issue is going to depend entirely on their ideological leanings. Because some people are determined to view several incidents of sexual harassment by political people solely in terms as an issue to be used to dump Madigan from political power.

Along those lines, I couldn’t help but notice the stories getting prominent play Tuesday morning about the woman currently suing Madigan because she claims he didn’t do much of anything to stop one of his political aides from his constant barrage of flirtations and sexual harassment.

The Chicago Sun-Times had it as their top story for a few hours that Alaina Hampton herself (the woman with the pending lawsuit) wanted to be the new chief of staff.

Yet I’m also wondering how many people learned of reports about Madigan’s response before they learned of Hampton herself.

BASHAM: The new Dem powerhouse

FOR THE RECORD, the new chief of staff is Jessica Basham, a former director of the Illinois House research appropriations unit – who issued a statement Tuesday saying she’s looking to hire a human resources director and an equal employment opportunity/affirmative action officer in hopes of creating a more fair working environment for the roughly 200 people whose jobs require them to call Madigan their “boss.”

Of course, Madigan will claim he didn’t hire Basham. He actually appointed a committee last week that was to review candidates for the chief of staff post. And yes, the committee was composed entirely of women – although they all were politically connected and most were themselves elected legislators.

With the head of that committee being Juliana Stratton – the woman who currently is running mate to gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker for the Nov. 6 general election.

STRATTON: Had a say in her pick

So the people who were hoping that Hampton’s plea in the press for the political post would help keep alive the stories of Mike Madigan being an insensitive boss who allows his people to harass women and treat them like objects will have to wonder.

IS MADIGAN SERIOUSLY addressing the issue of a problem within his staff (which I really don’t think is confined to the Democratic caucus, or to Illinois state government officials)?

I’d say that argument could be made, with how quickly a new chief of staff was hired.

While I’m not about to say that the “problem” is solved just because a woman is in the position of running the daily operations of the Democratic Party in the Illinois House of Representatives.

The critics (the people who want to go about screeching and screaming “Dump Madigan!” as their solution to all of government’s issues) may well claim that the women who had a say in picking a new chief of staff are too connected to the Democratic Party establishment to be objective.

WHICH MAY WELL be the big objection I have to the notion of sexual harassment being used as an issue to dump political people.

RAUNER: Would he be the only winner?

I suspect the people who are most behind this are the ones who can’t otherwise defeat the Dems on Election Day. I also suspect the last thing they really care about is the plight of women who are getting mistreatment on the job – no matter how hard they work.

Which as far as I’m concerned is the real injustice that we ought to be trying to resolve within our government – and within our society at-large.

That resolution likely involves people with serious approaches that go beyond a partisan attempt to dump someone from office come Election Day.

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Is Wrigley’s right field video board the equal of ‘spite fence’ of old in Philly?

Wrigley, from back in the days when fans … 

A part of me doesn’t know what to think of the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling allowing Ohio to strike would-be voters from the registration. But I must admit; the high court simultaneously restored my faith in it with its decision on how to handle a lawsuit against the Chicago Cubs.

The Supreme Court on Monday decided not to take up the case, which means the lower levels of courts who previously ruled in favor of the Cubs will have their legal judgment upheld.

… could catch a glimpse inside, just like at Shibe Park

AS IN THE Cubs no longer have to worry that someone will require them to take down that huge video board they erected behind the right field bleachers at Wrigley Field – the one that blocks the views of people who live in many of those apartment buildings on Sheffield Street.

You know, the people who used to regard one of the perks of their lodging that they could see into the ballpark and watch views of the Cubs’ ballgames.

Or in more recent years, the apartment owners who erected seats on their roofs and charged people prime rates for the right to watch the games from outside the ballpark.

Are the Wrigley video boards … 

Those owners filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Cubs back in 2015, claiming the scoreboard blocked the ballgame views they were making money off of. They claimed they reached an agreement with the Cubs back in 2004 that gave them the right to do so.

A FEDERAL JUDGE in Chicago disagreed and tossed the lawsuit, and an appeals court panel upheld that ruling.

The Supreme Court on Monday let it be known they had no intention of taking up the case. So there won’t be any argument by the high-and-mighty Supreme Court as to the merits of who can make money off of Cubs games.

Personally, I always thought those video boards the Cubs had erected in recent years decimated a large part of the ballpark’s appeal – one being that it was a ballpark in a residential neighborhood. But then again, I thought that in recent years, many of those neighborhood residents and businesses were taking actions that helped make the ballpark experience less special.

… the 21st Century equal of the Philly 'spite fence?

So the idea that anybody thinks they have a morally-superior attitude on this issue is one that is appalling. It is one that makes me grateful the nation’s high court feels no need to get itself involved.

I’D HATE TO think the court doesn’t have more important issues to address. Particularly since many will be bothered by the way it handled the Ohio case – one in which state election officials will be able to drop people from the voter registration rolls if they miss a few election cycles without actually casting ballots.

As much as I can see that people who don’t vote aren’t exactly being victimized, I am skeptical about the motives of people who are eager to reduce the voter rolls. Too much temptation for partisan politics to take over the process.

It may be what happens when people are too free to file lawsuits to try to get the courts to push everybody else around into submitting to their will. Because the baseball fan in me thinks of Philadelphia and Shibe Park when I think of the obstructions the Cubs placed up at Wrigley Field.

Baseball can take our minds off the inanities of elections

Shibe (later known as Connie Mack Stadium) had the infamous “spite fence” in right field. The ballpark built in 1909 (one year prior to Chicago's Comiskey Park) originally had a 12-foot-high wall in right field, with a residential street and apartments beyond it.

BUT WHEN THE Philadelphia Athletics got offended at the number of people not paying to watch ballgames, they added height in 1935 – turning the wall into a 34-foot-high barricade.

Which Philly fans argued was done purely out of spite – as though they had a right to view games for free. Just think if this issue was something that someone had felt compelled to file a lawsuit about. What if the courts had felt compelled to get involved?

Are the Wrigley video boards a 21^st Century equivalent of the spite fence? Are they a part of the ballpark’s new character?

And should we be more concerned about the court feeling compelled to give power to political people who may be too eager to erase from the voter rolls people who might not vote the “right” way on Election Day?

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Korean summit? It’s all about the ‘spin’

U.S. and Korean leaders will try to talk...

Assuming someone doesn’t say or do something stupid in the next few hours that causes somebody to go storming out of the room and bringing the summit between the United States and North Korea to an end – this is the week that the two sides will talk.

The nations that were at war back in the early 1950s and which ended in a stalemate that for decades has created the potential for the shooting to start up again are going to have their leaders try to talk out their differences.

... about peaceful relations in coming days

WHAT WILL COME out of all this? Who’s to say!

If anything, it doesn’t matter one iota what is actually done or said by officials of either side.

This truly will be an event about the political spin. Both sides are going to be looking for some sort of occurrence that they can distort into a story putting themselves in the best light.

When it comes to the officials from North Korea, I’m sure they want something to happen that they can claim to be the end of the war – with the North prevailing. It won’t matter that nothing will actually change. They want to be able to say they defeated the attempt of capitalism and Western imperialism to chase them out of power.

AND IF NOTHING truly occurs along those lines, they’ll want to be able to say it does.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials have their own agenda going into this gathering (which will take place in the early hours of Tuesday – our time). It may be over and done by the time we wake up Tuesday morning.

Or maybe the sides will talk late into the night (which will be about lunchtime, our time, on Tuesday)?

Remember how the 'Laverne & Shirley' stars both used to claim top billing because of how their names were positioned? This weekend will be filled with lots of equally ridiculous rhetoric by both Trump and Kim

What President Donald Trump wants to gain out of all this is something that he will be able to spin into stories of what a high-and-mighty, all-powerful negotiator he truly is.

TRUMP WANTS US to think that he’s the guy who was able to sit down face-to-face with North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un and knuckle under to his almighty aura.

On the surface, Trump says he wants to get North Korea officials to abandon the arsenal they have built up throughout the years of nuclear weapons – which, quite frankly, are the only reason anybody pays attention to the impoverished Asian nation whose attempt at Communism is so isolationist that there’s really no reason any other part of the world would want to be bothered with it.

Yes, it really is about his ego and that Nobel Prize – he will forevermore be bitter that his predecessor, Barack Obama, received the prize for his efforts to try to bring peace to the Middle East. I’m sure if it were possible, Trump would order the prize’s revocation from Obama.

Since that’s not possible, he’s out to get his own. His backers already are proclaiming him the man who “ended” the Korean War, and I’m sure the ideologues here will be more than willing to distort whatever actually happens into a story that backs their pre-summit rhetoric.

IN ALL HONESTY, I’m skeptical that anything of significance will happen as a result of the talks taking place in Singapore in coming days. Even Trump himself has made statements warning that long-term change will take years to achieve.

The kind of image Trump dreams he can make a part of the past in Pyongyang

Meaning we can’t proclaim him the ultimate failure if nothing has changed by Friday. Although nothing will stop the smarty-pants-types amongst us from pondering which of the two world leaders has the most ridiculous hairstyle.

This week’s activity is about talk. And talk is good. It’s better than isolationism keeping the sides apart to the point where our ignorance of each other results in somebody doing something stupid (always risky when nuclear warheads are involved).

And if it really is nothing but talk, I can’t help but remember the old cliché; “Talk is cheap!”

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Trump only capable of helping people after it no longer really matters?

Perhaps Donald Trump thinks he’s a boxer – the “Great White Hope” of our society who’s using his political authority for what he thinks is the common good.

Was appearing with Stallone the real reason for the president granting a pardon to Jack Johnson?

Either that, or he’s just like many other political people who get all ga-ga when in the presence of professional athletes and likes to do things that bring him into their world.

I CAN’T HELP but come to that conclusion after Trump’s actions of recent weeks – one in which he granted an outright pardon to the one-time heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson.

And another on Friday where he said he’s inclined to grant another pardon to a more recent vintage heavyweight champ – Muhammed Ali (a.k.a., Cassius Clay).

Trump did the Johnson pardon last month, literally holding an Oval Office ceremony to publicly sign the clemency into law. He was surrounded by Johnson family members (Jack is long deceased), professional boxers and actor Sylvester Stallone.

Who has portrayed boxer Rocky Balboa in countless films throughout the decades.

Does Trump want to share in Ali glory?

I SUSPECT THAT for Trump, the real reason for doing the pardon was that he got to appear in news photos with Stallone – and Stallone can claim he’s involved in the real world of boxing. Similar to how in 2016, actor Charlie Sheen tried to get to throw out the first ball at a World Series game because he once played a Cleveland Indians pitcher in a movie.

Now that he got positive press for the Johnson pardon, he’s seeking out another boxer to grant clemency to. Hence, Ali. Does this mean he’ll try to find reasons to someday grant clemency to boxer Mike Tyson, or any other boxer who got into legal troubles?

If you get the impression that I think these legal actions by Trump are pointless, you’d be correct. Specifically because I don’t doubt some people will try to use the Johnson pardon or similar acts as evidence that Trump is somehow sympathetic to the concerns of black people.

Johnson pardon -- better late than never?

They’re meant to counter the impression held by many that Trump is the president of choice for the bigoted segment of our society. Without him actually having to do something that would make a difference in the lives of non-white people.

IN THE CASE of the Johnson pardon, there’s no doubt that his conviction on violations of the Mann Act were a crock – that law was the way prosecutors criminalized interracial relationships. Johnson wound up serving prison time and went through the rest of his life with a criminal record. Will Trump someday consider a pardon for rock ‘n’ roller Chuck Berry (who died last year) for his Mann Act conviction?

To do something now all these years later (at 72 years, he’s been dead longer than he lived) truly fits the definition of the absolute least Trump could do for Johnson, whose life ended with the taint of a racist-motivated conviction.

Although a part of me thinks that his talk related to Ali qualifies as even less action.

Ali, who died in 2016 at age 74, was found guilty for refusing to comply with the military draft during the Vietnam War and got a five-year prison sentence.

HE APPEALED THE case, and in 1971 the Supreme Court of the United States overturned it. Sparing him prison time. The fact that he had a conviction was the reason his boxing career was stalled for a few years, until he won back the Heavyweight Champion title in 1974.

BERRY: Another Mann Act conviction to address?

In short, the legal system dealt with Ali’s conviction while he was alive and gave him back his career. He also had a post-boxing life that saw him rise to exalted levels in society. Which is why attorneys representing Ali’s interests are saying Trump’s actions are “unnecessary.”

They reek of Trump being a political opportunist, trying to bring some of the modern-day Ali glory to himself. While doing nothing that would impact Ali’s actual life.

All of which strikes me as Trump making gestures he thinks will appease people without upsetting the sensibilities of those who think these past racial injustices are actually evidence of the “America” that Trump wants us to go back to as his vision of “Making it Great Again.”

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Harassment enough to Dump Madigan?

There are political watchers eager to see Michael Madigan dumped from his many positions of political power who would be overjoyed if all the allegations of sexual harassment were to build up into something that gave the all-powerful “Mr. Speaker” the nudge out the door.

MADIGAN: Ultimate target of harassment

Yet a part of me is skeptical that such a tactic will achieve any success.

IN FACT, EVEN if it turned out to be that Madigan was somehow dumped from his Democratic Party chairmanship and his House speaker role, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that the ultimate victors were the kind of people who think too much is being made of the harassment issue.

The activists who think they’ll achieve some level of success with a “Dump Madigan” type of campaign could find themselves (and all the rest of us) with someone more repulsive (and blatantly sexist) in a position of powerful.

The issue of political people behaving in a harassing manner toward women gained a bit more attention this week when it became known that Madigan’s long-time chief of staff in the Illinois Legislature was facing allegations of harassment.

Allegations were made Tuesday morning, and within a few hours, Madigan demanded the resignation of Timothy Mapes from all the political posts he held that made him a top-level aide to the House speaker.

MAPES: Out of a job for misbehavior

SOME WANT TO see this as another blow to Madigan, who earlier this year had to terminate the political party employment of the brother of the alderman from the ward Madigan lives in – on account of the fact he couldn’t take “no” for an answer to his repeated advances towards a woman who worked on Madigan’s Democratic Party staff.

Some might be willing to see these incidents as ones in which Madigan “handled” problematic situations by firing individuals who misbehaved towards women. Others want to say Madigan only acted because he faced public scrutiny and would have preferred to have done nothing.

QUINN: His brother lost Madigan job

In fact, just this week, attorneys for Madigan filed a legal motion seeking to have dismissed the lawsuit that was filed earlier this year by the woman who was harassed by the aldermanic brother.

I don’t doubt that Madigan – who doesn’t, as of yet, have anybody making misbehavior allegations against himself – wishes this issue would go away, and probably is hoping that public interest in such gauche behavior eventually will die down.

DUNKIN: Facing his own allegations

BUT I ALSO can see where the “other side” of this issue isn’t people who oppose harassment but is actually people who think there is NO harassment and would openly try to fight off all these allegations being made instead of trying to address the issue.

I can’t help but notice the case of Ken Dunkin. He’s the former Illinois House member who managed to tick off Madigan and other Democrats that they, in a sense, fired him. They ran Juliana Stratton to run against him in 2016 and she won – giving her the kind of public attention that now makes her the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor come the Nov. 6 election.

Gov. Bruce Rauner tried to score some political points for himself by picking Dunkin to serve on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District board – a post he began serving in Thursday.

Yet now there are allegations of Dunkin himself behaving like a cad during his legislative days, meaning the guy whom Republicans were supposed to use to take pot-shots at Dems will now wind up reflecting badly upon themselves.

WHEN IT SEEMS Rauner tried asking for Dunkin’s resignation, Dunkin’s response was as blunt and rude a “no way” as he ever gave to Madigan.

RAUNER: Will he get tagged w/ charges?

Could it be that Madigan has the influence to get misbehavers out of office? Whereas Rauner doesn’t. And others of an ideological leaning that makes them believe sexual harassment is a non-issue also aren’t going to side up on this issue?

I’m not saying Madigan is politically safe, nor am I necessarily defending his behavior – which borders on apathy toward the issue rather than any real sense of wrongdoing.

All I know is that I suspect this is an issue where many people are going to go out of their way to cover their own behinds. And the big losers, most likely, will be those individuals most likely to face harassing behavior!

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EXTRA: Would anyone have dared try to ‘term limit’ a Daley out of office?

Is it really time for Rahm to leave City Hall?

It seems to be the newest tactic amongst those people who are desperate to have Anybody But Rahm to be mayor of Chicago – a term limits proposal that would knock Rahm Emanuel off the ballot altogether for the 2019 election cycle.

It seems such an effort has been under way for the past couple of years, to limit to two, four-year terms, the amount of time anyone can hold the post of Chicago mayor.

Pat Quinn thinks so!

AND YES, THE initiative is being led by former Gov. Pat Quinn – the man who previously in political life led the drive to slash the Illinois House of Representatives from 177 members to 118. On the logic that we really didn’t need so many people running around the Statehouse grounds calling themselves legislators.

So yes, Quinn is just the type who likes to do radical things that shake up the way we perceive our local government.

The “cutback” amendment seriously altered the way our state Legislature operated – and some are convinced not for the better (it did reduce the number of Chicago Republicans and rural Democrats who serve in office).

So I’m sure Quinn isn’t going to be swayed by any arguments about letting the people pick whom they want for office – rather than telling them certain people can no longer hold office.

How would Daley have reacted, ...

THE FACT THAT Richard J. Daley served into a sixth four-year term in office (it took the Grim Reaper to remove him from government) and his son wound up holding the post for just over 22 years (deciding to retire finally instead of seeking a seventh term in office) is something I’m sure Chicagoans think of as a plus.

While I know there are some who think both of those men served at City Hall far too long (and would probably dread it when the next generation of the Daley family produces a mayoral candidate), I’m also sure there are others who will be quick to dismiss those people as malcontents.

And also most likely claim that Quinn is trying to revive his political aspirations by banding together the malcontents into a sizable voter bloc.

... or his son, to anybody daring to suggest term limits

After all, if the people really were anxious to have Quinn back in office, they never would have dumped him as governor in 2014 or might have actually given him the Democratic nomination to run for Illinois attorney general come the Nov. general election.

PERSONALLY, I’M ALL for letting voters decide for themselves who they want to have in office. If the outcry against Emanuel getting a third term as mayor is really so strong, then he will fail to win in the 2019 election cycle.

If it turns out that the assortment of egomaniacal would-be politicos talking about running against Rahm next year has a legitimate mayoral contender, then that person will prevail against Emanuel in a real election.

Knocking out Emanuel by term-limiting him would seem to give us a new mayor from amongst the mediocrities that thus far have lined up to take on Emanuel.

It seems like people think the only way Emanuel can be beaten is to not have him run. Which I don’t consider a plus for the Chicago electorate.

ALTHOUGH I ALSO have to admit to being skeptical anything will become of the term limits proposal. It will take 52,000 valid signatures of support to put such a referendum on the Nov. 6 ballot – where if it passes it would then take effect for the 2019 election cycle.

Repeal term limits if Daley-Thompson ever runs for mayor?

Quinn admits he figures he’s going to need about 100,000 signatures of support to ensure the idea can successfully fight off the inevitable legal challenges that the critics will pursue.

But Quinn, according to assorted published reports, only has about 50,000 signatures, which took him two years to compile. Can he really get 50,000 more within the next couple of months – the deadline for the Nov. 6 elections?

Or would Quinn have a better chance of making himself relevant in the mayoral cycle by trying to run himself for the post against Emanuel and the others – including Paul Vallas, the man who tried to resurrect his own political aspirations by being Quinn’s running mate back in ’14?

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