National Football Union

National Football Union

OFL
Founded	23 December 1978 (1978-12-23)
Headquarters	Hoydgol, Uulgadzar
TC affiliation	1993
OFL affiliation	1993
President	Tamachi Dodai
Vice-President	Pavel Bazarevič
Website	https://football.uu

The National Football Union (Uulgadzan: Үндэсний Хөлбөмбөг Холбоо) is the official governing body of association football in Uulgadzar. The association is in charge of managing the national team of Uulgadzar and organizing domestic football competitions like the Örsöldöön 1, 2, 3, and the Mountain Cup.

History

Prior to the 1978 coup, all Uulgadzan football on a national level was organized into the semi-professional League of Uulgadzan Football, which was advertised to prospective players as a fully professional league. Players could sign up to try out on one of 12 "public teams" who would then compete for the Mountain Cup trophy.

After 1978, the re-introduction of private business to Uulgadzar caused the collapse of the League of Uulgadzan Football. The government founded the National Football Union to replace it, and sold it off to a group of investors in Hoydgol.

Örsöldöön 1

In 1979, the board of investors went around the nation to discover new players to form clubs. They took clubs from pre-existing amateur leagues throughout the nation, and formed clubs from young players who played on their college's football team.

By 1980, they had found 16 clubs, and were ready to begin the first season in June of that year. The season flopped due to mismanagement and ambiguity on the location of each game. To rectify this, they assigned each club a field and gave each club their entire schedule for the season, which they could post in their club office and field and distribute to fans.

This led to the massive success of the 1981 season. Most other sports had stopped due to the coup, so football quickly became popular among a large, unhappy population. Football became the biggest sport in Uulgadzar almost overnight, and the National Football Union quickly became the most profitable sports organization in Uulgadzar.

Expansion of league system

In 1988, more clubs wanted to join the Örsöldöön 1 but there was no system in place to add or remove clubs from the league. To fix this, the National Football Union created the Örsöldöön 2 and had it operate on a system of promotion and relegation with the Örsöldöön 1 and semi-pro and amateur leagues around the nation. The Örsöldöön 2 started with 20 clubs promoted from semi-pro leagues throughout the nation, but has since increased to 28 clubs.

In 1997, there were still too many semi-pro clubs who wanted to join the Union's leagues, so the Örsöldöön 3 was created with 32 teams from semi-pro and amateur leagues from around the nation. It has since increased to 36 teams. Currently, there are talks of creating a fourth league due to the massive growth in football in Uulgadzar throughout the 2000s and 2010s.

Competitions

The National Football Union organizes several domestic competitions:

• Professional leagues:
  • Örsöldöön 1
  • Örsöldöön 2
  • Örsöldöön 3

• National cups:
  • Mountain Cup