LA Galaxy's Landon Donovan and Visa Collaborate to Create 'Financial Soccer' - Free, Educational Video Game

Donovan Launches Soccer-Themed Personal Finance Game at L.A. High School

LOS ANGELES, March 22 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of an ongoing global financial literacy effort, Visa Inc. has joined with Los Angeles Galaxy Captain Landon Donovan to launch a new FIFA World Cup™ branded educational video game to Venice High School students. This free game was developed with help from Donovan himself, who is recently back from a successful stint playing in England and ready to start the MLS season at the end of the week. Additionally, as part of this initiative, Visa has donated 10 Apple MacBooks to Venice High School to play Financial Soccer and for other academic uses.  

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100322/DC74434)

Visa's Financial Soccer is an educational video game that combines the world's most popular sport with a high-quality financial literacy curriculum to create an innovative approach for helping children and adults learn about personal finance. In addition to helping create educational questions for the soccer-themed personal finance game, Donovan also appears on the game's cover and website. 

A FIFA Partner since 2007, Visa has been working to roll out Financial Soccer in over 25 countries in the months leading up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup™. This multilingual game is available at www.financialsoccer.com. Financial Soccer is part of Practical Money Skills for Life, Visa's free, award-winning, financial education program. The program contains comprehensive money management resources and lesson plans tailored for use at home and in the classroom. The game is the latest component of Visa's longstanding commitment to financial literacy which has helped millions of people worldwide learn how to manage their money wisely. 

"We share Landon Donovan's deep commitment to promoting financial literacy and we are pleased to be working with him on the Financial Soccer video game," said Jason Alderman, Director of Financial Education, Visa Inc. "It is critical, especially in today's challenging economic environment, that everyone have access to the tools and resources they need to make informed financial decisions." 

"It would have been great to learn more about personal finance when I was in school," said Donovan, who also captains the U.S. national team bound for the 2010 World Cup in just 80 days. "I've enjoyed working with Visa to help create and launch Financial Soccer, providing 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." 

Financial Soccer challenges players to answer fast-paced, multiple-choice money management questions correctly to advance down the field for a chance to score a goal. Financial Soccer offers single player and head-to-head game play options and is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic with additional versions in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Bahasa launching next month. This free game features three difficulty levels -- geared to children, teens and adults -- and has companion lesson modules for classroom use. Players learn key concepts about saving, responsible spending, budgeting, and the wise use of credit. 

Financial Soccer comes on the heels of Visa's financial literacy video game developed with the NFL and NFL PLAYERS. To date, that game -- Financial Football -- has been donated by Visa to 25 state governments, including California, who have in turn, distributed it to every public high school in those states.   

About Visa Inc.

Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable digital currency. Underpinning digital currency is one of the world's most advanced processing networks -- VisaNet -- that is capable of handling more than 10,000 transactions a second, with fraud protection for consumers and guaranteed payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank, and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa's innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: Pay now with debit, ahead of time with prepaid or later with credit products. For more information, visit www.corporate.visa.com. Corporate

SOURCE Visa Inc.

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