Written by Chris Krueger
Every four years, people around the world tune in to the FIFA World Cup. The 2026 tournament is underway in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, drawing a global audience that is expected to be in the billions.
What does this have to do with Parkinson’s? For me, quite a lot. Many of my earliest memories are of playing soccer, and I’ve been involved in the game in nearly every way—as a player, fan, coach, referee, and administrator.
But after my Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2020, I stopped playing. The risk of injury from a contact sport felt too high given how important exercise is to managing my symptoms. That decision made it hard to watch the 2022 World Cup. I felt a sense of loss. I missed playing.
Watching this year’s tournament hasn’t been as hard. The biggest reason is that three years ago, I proposed the idea of a Walking Soccer for Parkinson’s program to Rachael Ritter, one of the physical therapists (PTs) at Destination Rehab, a neuro-PT practice in Bend, Oregon.
After a few planning meetings led by Rachael—with me as her volunteer sidekick—the Destination Rehab team launched the first session of Walking Soccer for Parkinson’s in late 2024. Since then, there have been four sessions, and I’ve volunteered whenever possible.
This program has gotten me back on the field to play a little and given me a chance to do a bit of coaching. That would have been meaningful enough, but it’s also been inspiring to see how much the program helps others with Parkinson’s—even those who had never kicked a ball before.
Walking soccer is what it sounds like: soccer without running. There is an international organization, FIFWA (the Federation of International Walking Football Associations) that publishes official rules.
Among other things, these rules define walking (one foot must always be in contact with the ground), limit most physical contact between players, and require keeping the ball below head height. Walking soccer also typically involves a smaller field and fewer players on the field at the same time.
In the program I’ve been involved in, the main changes we made to the official rules are that we limited participants to people living with Parkinson’s and allowed walking/trekking poles, like Urban Poling activator poles. For purposes of playing the game, we considered the poles to be extensions of a player’s arm.
Walking soccer is growing around the world. Since starting in 2011, walking soccer is now played in over 80 countries and there are multiple international tournaments. This is not specific to Parkinson’s-focused programs, but these are also becoming more common.
Note that I’ll generally be calling the game soccer, although in most parts of the world it’s called “football.”
There are five main thing that cause me to think soccer would be beneficial for people with Parkinson’s:
If you’ve been watching the World Cup, the speed and intensity might make walking soccer for Parkinson’s sound surprising or even risky. But through the first four sessions of the Oregon program, we have seen very few falls or injuries.
In fact, as a referee of adult league games, I’ve seen more falls in warm-ups for most games than in all four sessions of Walking Soccer for Parkinson’s—an imperfect comparison, but one that highlights how, when the game is adapted well, it can be a safe and accessible for people with Parkinson’s.
Part of that safety comes from the way the sessions are structured and that participants are allowed to use walking/trekking poles while they play. It also helps that we’ve had an immensely supportive community, with care partners and volunteers who just love soccer nearby to help.
Moreover, participants in the program appear to have improvements in dynamic balance, walking speed, and dual-task ability. Care partners off the field have said they noticed the same.
In the program I’ve been involved in, each new group starts with the basics: learning to dribble and control the ball using all parts of the foot. This activity challenges balance and motor coordination.
We then move on to passing while standing still, then while moving, and finally to passing with a purpose—passing to move the ball to a specific location or to complete more passes than another group in a set amount of time. This requires communication, frequent changes in direction, and tracking of multiple things at the same time. Each meeting, we add new parts of the game: shooting, defending (both with and without trying to steal/win the ball), moving without the ball to help your teammates, and so on.
We also incorporate static and dynamic stretching and aim to end every day with a game of some sort, and I think it’s fair to say Walking Soccer involves all four main parts of the recently updated guidelines for Parkinson’s exercise from the Parkinson’s Foundation and American College of Sports Medicine.
Of course, what we do doesn’t often quite look like what you see on TV. To me, this is part of what makes walking soccer–and soccer overall–a beautiful game: it accommodates a wide range of abilities.
For example, in our program, when we start with dribbling, someone will walk and talk with the folks who have previous soccer experience in order to challenge their ability to move while thinking about something. At the same time, those who are less experienced may start by standing in one place, moving the ball without walking. If someone needs extra balance support, they may stand by a goalpost or a fence around the field area so they feel more stable. Regardless of where they start, I can’t think of any participant who hadn’t become more comfortable and confident moving with ball by the second or third meeting, regardless of their previous experience.
There are also varying levels of ability in our passing exercises. Participants with no previous soccer experience are often unsure of their footing and move tentatively. While they gain more comfort moving and kicking the ball, those with some previous soccer experience may engage in more dynamic passing. In one session, we had a former college player who has had Parkinson’s quite a bit longer than I have. When not on the soccer field, his steps were small and tentative, and he was prone to freezing. But on the first day we were working on passing, he and I passed back and forth, mostly with just one-touch each. We did this for seven or eight minutes without stopping, reconnecting to a rhythm that had once been a bigger part of both our lives.
Click the links at the bottom of this post to see some walking soccer in action.
Walking soccer seems to me to have at least as much potential as Rock Steady Boxing, Pedaling for Parkinson’s, and pickleball to change the lives of people with Parkinson’s. What’s more, it also has potential to bring even more people closer into the Parkinson’s community. After all, one reason to call soccer “the beautiful game” is that it is played and watched everywhere in the world.
For now, there is another Walking Soccer for Parkinson’s session is planned in Oregon in the fall, and the Destination Rehab team is discussing collecting more data and publishing a paper about the experience.
Personally, my hope is that Walking Soccer for Parkinson’s will reach more communities in the United States and around the world. For example, I would love to see the program I’m involved in grow to the point where we can put together a game against a team in another city in the Pacific Northwest. And from there the possibilities are wide open.
For me, Walking Soccer for Parkinson’s has made something I’ve loved my whole life—soccer in general and the World Cup in particular—into an integral part of my Parkinson’s story. Soccer is now a part of how I can change the trajectory of my Parkinson’s—even if in a small way.
While I know my relationship with soccer will change again at some point—and I also know soccer and team sports generally may not be everyone’s cup of tea—to me, walking soccer is proof that positive change is possible, despite Parkinson’s. It is a reminder that I can do more than I thought I could. And that is another—and a more powerful—reason to call it the beautiful game.
See the Oregon Program in Action at Destination Rehab’s Facebook and Instagram pages
Central Oregon Daily News Story about the first session of Walking Soccer for Parkinson’s
Bend Source’s Story about Walking Soccer for Parkinson’s
KTVZ TV Coverage of Walking Soccer for Parkinson’s
More Walking Soccer for Parkinson’s Videos
Story About the Icelandic National Team’s Parkinson’s Awareness Jersey