For some reason, this World Cup is more popular in the United States than ever.  The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa lasts almost a month and for Soccer fans the passion is unbelievably high.  It is new for many of us here in America and unfortunately for some diehard fans; it can be very distracting.

I have a friend of mine who says his credit score goes down almost 50 points every World Cup because he is too distracted to pay his bills.  It’s not that he doesn’t ultimately pay his bills; he just lets it slip past the due date.  It’s that late payment ding on his credit report that lowers his credit score.

Many of us in America might find this hard to believe, but I can understand why this happens.  Being new to Soccer, I will say this World Cup has me addicted.  I have watched every game.  Some games are very early in the morning and others I watch on DVR into the late hours of the night.  I am reading everything I can about it and following the charts and statistics.  Even given that, I am nowhere near the enthusiasm of some Soccer fans, especially those with immigrant and family ties to other countries. Yet, I have found myself behind on simple things like my blogs.

The problem is, the World Cup is almost a month long from start to finish.  There is very little down time.  Have you ever tried to segregate parts of the Internet to avoid accidentally seeing sports scores on say Google News?  What about telling friends and colleagues: “Say nothing about the World Cup, not a word”.  It’s not easy to wait until after work to watch a recorded game.

So, if you find the World Cup has you paying your bills maybe next week or perhaps after the finals of the World Cup, then know you may have years of a lower credit score.  I know the anxiety and tension might be high, but take a deep breath and pay your bills.  You’ll be glad you did, even if, during the excitement of the World Cup.  Also, don’t ignore your credit monitoring or identity theft alerts either.

David B. Coulter – Founder and C.E.O. of SmartCredit.com

Tags: 2010 FIFA World Cup, credit monitoring, Credit Report, Credit Score, FIFA, identity theft, Late Payments, South Africa, Sports and Late Payments, World Cup

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at 8:05 am and is filed under Credit Report, Credit Score, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.