Use soccer to kick-start kids’ financial education

As one of America's biggest professional soccer stars, Landon Donovan sprints, slides and even slithers his way across the field. He's the captain of the U.S. national team, idolized by legions of youngsters.

What young fans may not know is that Donovan has a new passion -- raising the financial smarts of children all over the world.

Donovan and a handful of other professional soccer stars in late September helped support the launch of Financial Soccer, a free video game available at http://www.financialsoccer.com.

Part game, part educational tool, Financial Soccer teaches the fundamentals of money management, such as saving, budgeting, responsible spending, and the wise use of credit and debit cards.

Who's behind Financial Soccer? Visa, which is also a sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Financial Soccer follows a similar online educational game -- Financial Football -- that Visa introduced several years ago in partnership with the National Football League and the NFL Players Association.

The soccer game was rolled out first in Brazil and the United States, and the credit-card company plans to introduce it in about a dozen other major soccer-playing countries in the months leading up to the World Cup.

The game is easy to play and fast -- one version can be completed in five minutes. There's even stadium crowd noise and the graphics, while not quite Xbox 360 quality, are sharp enough to keep a 13-year-old interested.

Financial Soccer is aimed at three audiences: Amateurs (ages 11-14); semi-pros (14-18); and world class (18 and older).Youngsters can play individually or head-to-head with a friend.

The object of the game is simple: Pick a World Cup team (or teams) and pass, dribble, and shoot your way down the soccer field for a goal by correctly answering age-appropriate money-related questions. The faster players answer correctly, the more likely they are to maintain control of the ball.

The longer the pass the tougher the question. Incorrect answers turn the ball over to the other team. Ties lead to an overtime "shootout" with extra questions.

I played the five-minute version of the game and answered a dozen true/false and multiple choice questions on topics such as online banking, prepaid debit cards, identity theft, and corporate balance sheets.

Two easy questions tested my ability to correctly count change. At the end, my personal game stats were posted showing the number of questions answered correctly or incorrectly. Too cool!

On the game site, there is also a link to Visa's Practical Money Skills for Life content. But, if you think the game is plastered with Visa trademarks, it's not.

In a ceremony two weeks ago tied to the launch of the game, Donovan said, "It would have been great to learn more about personal finance when I was in school." Fortunately, he said in his statement, Financial Soccer "provides today's students with the opportunity and tools to learn about the financial world in ways that were never available to me when I was younger."

Can youngsters learn the financial ABC's by playing this online game? Yes, and I'll tell you one other thing, it's a lot easier than mastering the perfect soccer bicycle kick.

Contact Steve Rosen at or write to him at The Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108.