WARD Wins 25/26 First League, Erchim Gets Play-Off Spot

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The final matches of 2025/2026 Mongolian First League were played today with WARD FC winning its first title and first opportunity at Premier League football next season. Deren 2 and Erchim FC take home the silver and bronze, respectively.

After getting a very late start to the season because of ongoing disputes between footballing stakeholders and the MFF executive committee, each club played only eight matches. The schedule was played in a single round-robin format, with each club playing all others once. All did not go completely smoothly over the short season as several clubs received points penalties of varying degrees and for various reasons which ultimately drastically affected the final standings.

The championship was not decided until the final two matches had been played today. WARD and Deren 2 both won their final matches easily which meant that the clubs were tied with 18 points each at the top of the table. Head-to-head results was the determined first tie-breaker. For that, we'd have to look back to Matchday 2. On 7 June, WARD defeated Deren 2 by a score of 3-0 which ultimately secured the title.

Interestingly, this season Deren 2 was managed by Vojislav Bralusic, a Serbian who has well over ten years of top-flight coaching in Mongolia and a stint as the senior national team head coach on his CV.

Full Table

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Individual Awards

Best Goalkeeper: S. Batmagai (WARD)-Six shutouts in 8 matches.

Best Defender: B. Ankhbayar (WARD)

Best Midfielder: J.Sübeedei (Erchim)

Best Forward: B. Namsrai (WARD)-18 goals in 8 matches

Promotion/Relegation

Typically, the First League runner-up plays a play-off series against one of the bottom two MPL clubs in a promotion/relegation series. However, because Deren 2 is the second team of current MPL club Deren FC, Erchim FC will face Khoromkhon FC to determine which of the two storied clubs will be in the top division next season. No current MPL club will be automatically relegated since SP Falcons withdrew from the league halfway through the 25/26 season.

Play-off Series

Date: TBA

Erchim FC vs. Khoromkhon FC

Date: TBA

Khoromkhon FC vs. Erchim FC