Foreign aid pouring into my Chicago neighborhood

Workmen put finishing touches on our new neighborhood soccer field built with foreign aid.

Corporations have found a safe tax haven here in Chicago and the State of Illinois. So much so that teacher retirement funds are being threatened, mental health clinics are being shuttered along with a hundred neighborhood schools, due mainly to lack of revenue. Under Rahm Emanuel's regime, Chicago is being turned into a beggar city which now operates on the charity and benevolence of the mayor's wealthy patrons and power philanthropists along with foreign aid. 

The latest example:  Down the street from a closed mental health clinic in my Logan Square neighborhood, a new astro-turf soccer field is under construction thanks to foreign aid from the oil-wealthy United Arab Emirates, the benevolence of British soccer moguls, and the Pritzkers, the billionaire union-busting family that refuses to pay their Hyatt Hotel workers a living wage.

“We have a philosophy of giving back to the community — America is a great, up-and-coming soccer market, but first we want to give back,” said Gary Hopkins, head of Manchester City’s international development team in the United States. He said that Manchester City will be providing three years of soccer programming, including training and bringing in coaches to work with kids interested in the game.

Hopkins is also author of Star Spangled Soccer: Selling, Marketing and Management of Soccer in the USA and says that interest in soccer among Americans took off after Chicago hosted the 1994 World Cup. -- Chicago Sun-Times