Impediments of Sponsor's Attraction to Iran's Professional Football

The cost of running sports is rising daily. Individuals, clubs and nations are finding it extremely difficult to cope. The major alternative one would expect is sponsorship but in Iran it is not forthcoming. This study will therefore look into the perceived impediments of sports sponsorship in Iran's professional football. The survey research design was used with a sample size of 116 broken down to ‎club managers, sports management experts, marketing experts, and ‎sponsor managers. Investigator-made questionnaire was used for data collection, ‎where its face and content validity was confirmed by sports management and ‎marketing instructors and its reliability was estimated 0.84 through Cronbach's ‎alpha method. The results of factor analysis of data indicated the following seven ‎factors as perceived impediments of sponsor’s attraction to Iran's professional football: Structural and managerial impediments, Miscarriage of sponsors in ‎achieving their goals, Lack of marketing principals usage, Low level of ‎professionalism in Iran's football, Legal and media ‎impediments, Lack of technical considerations in clubs, and Lack of ‎suitable situation for attraction of international sponsors.‎