FIFA Master Alumni - Where are they now? - Mongoljingoo Sodgerel
Mongoljingoo Sodgerel
Current Position: Chief Operations Officer at the BARÇA Academy Mongolia
Year of Graduation: 2018 (18th Edition)
Nationality: Mongolia
What does your current role involve?
I am in charge of daily operations at the Barcelona academy official branch in Mongolia. The Barca Academy in Mongolia was founded in July 2024 with the official inauguration hosted in February 2025. The professional football academy in Mongolia is for kids aged between 6-13 years. The Academy is undergoing preparation and promotion now in Ulaanbaatar. I work with 5 other colleagues who are also experts in football.
I dedicated the previous 12+ years of my life to the management of football by working at the governing body in Mongolia. Now I have shifted into working at the club level at an internationally recognized football club. The working environment and involved stakeholders are totally different but the learning process is always ongoing.
Meeting kids who want to be Messi or Yamal and their parents is a real joy for me when doing my job. I realized that the key for football development is proper training and elite play at club level for young kids. This encouraged me to start working with a club where there is a professional and proper scheme of football for young kids. The younger the kids, the more they learn.
Which aspects of the FIFA Master course have helped you most in your career?
It helped me in terms of networking with people from other sports backgrounds because I only have experience in football. There is a good and positive feeling when meeting alumni from the FIFA Master in every corner of the globe.
The field visits and meeting people from different sports, not only football, was a fantastic approach by the FIFA Master, and something that differentiates it from other university programmes. The range of field visits teaches you many new things which are not taught by other universities.
One of the most memorable field visits during my edition of the FIFA Master was to Bolton Wanderers Football Club stadium in the United Kingdom. It was the first time I stayed in a stadium hotel. It was a unique and great example of an idea which I could take back to my home country of how a stadium can accommodate a hotel service beneath it.
The FIFA Master alumni activities are also a driving tool for new and older students who can exchange ideas and work advice between each other. I have always meet alumni in every corner of the world when I travel – which has included more than 30 different countries so far. Before studying for the masters, I welcomed one of the alumni who completed the course during the early years to Mongolia and that encouraged me to study even more.
What advice would you give to future students?
Enjoy every moment during your study time at the three different countries where the FIFA Master modules are based. They all have a unique culture and new environment of life. Don’t worry about your future career or jobs, and don’t push too hard about finding a job immediately after graduation. When I studied, there were no short Tik-Tok reels and vlogging was not as big as it is now. If I studied again now, I would take shorts of every moment which I enjoyed and experienced. I recommend future students to take as many video, photo or vlog format records as possible to save these memories forever.
