The Chicago Fire Soccer Club was saddened to learn of the recent passing of Julius Roth, a champion for soccer in the state of Illinois for nearly 70 years and a 1990 inductee into the Illinois Soccer Hall of Fame.
After arriving in Chicago from Czechoslovakia in 1951, Roth was a player and coach at the club level and in the early 1970s became a founding organizer of both Illinois Youth Soccer Association (IYSA) and U.S. Youth Soccer. He held numerous USYSA leadership positions and in the 1980s extended his influence into the creation of the Illinois Women's Soccer League, which has since grown to nearly 800 teams.