FIFA Master 25th edition class go behind the scenes at the Home of Football and FIFA Museum during a two-day visit to Zurich
Thursday 10th and Friday 11th April 2025 are dates the students from the FIFA Master 25th edition class will never forget as they had the chance to go behind the scenes at the FIFA headquarters and FIFA Museum in Zurich during a busy programme of meetings and talks by senior organisation representatives.
Day one of the field visit schedule began with the now traditional class group picture followed by a welcome message by the FIFA President Gianni Infantino. In a special address to the class he said, “You should be proud to be part of the leading postgraduate sports management course in Europe, many of whose graduates work for FIFA today. I wish you the very best and advise you to keep working hard towards your goals while enjoying the journey”.
It was then time to move to the first presentation of the day on the corporate “story” of FIFA by Public Relations Manager, and FIFA Master 12th edition graduate, Honey Thaljieh. She was then followed by another course alumni from the 8th edition, Juliana Correa who is FIFA Team Lead Brand and Creative Services.
Before the mid-day break, Honey provided the students with a behind the scenes guided tour of the Home of Football and the chance to explore where decisions at the heart of world football are made.
Following a well-deserved lunch, the group gathered once again for talks by the FIFA Member Associations department and by another FIFA Master course graduate, Arijana Demirovic (13th edition), who is now FIFA Head of Women’s Football, and Tyson Scott (20th edition) who is FIFA Senior Women´s Football Relations Manager. With the highly anticipated Women’s Euros to be held in Switzerland later this summer, it was the perfect opportunity to learn more about the work of FIFA in women’s football development.
After a brief coffee break and the opportunity to catch up with more FIFA Master alumni now working in Zurich, the class returned for the closing sessions of a fascinating day. These included talks by the Innovation and also People and Culture departments, and also with various trainees from different areas of FIFA’s work who are all graduates from the 24th edition of the course - Chris Curulli (Communications), Beatriz Loduca Sivieri (Commercial Strategy & Planning), Anthony Zhipeng Cao (Workforce Management), Guilherme Polgrymas (Competition Management) and Alice Yoon (Media Partnership and Relations Services). This particular session provided an opportunity for the current class to ask questions and to learn more of the career paths of our students after graduation from the Master. The day then concluded with a presentation by Chief People, Technology and Operations Officer, Kimberley Morris.
The following morning, the class gathered for Day two and a special welcome by the FIFA Museum which is also based in Zurich. This was a chance to explore the vast collection of football artefacts held by the museum and also to spend time in the specialist library as the class continue to complete research work for their Final Projects.
On behalf of the CIES and 25th edition class, thank you to everyone at FIFA and the FIFA Museum who made these visits possible.
