A Survey of the Condition of Ethical Ideology in Iranian Premier League Soccer Players

The aim of this study was to survey the condition of ethical ideology of Iranian premier league soccer players. For this purpose, Ethical Position in Professional Soccer Questionnaire (EPPSQ) with 15 items developed by Shajie et al. (2012) was employed and randomly administered to 162 Iranian premier league soccer players from 11 teams (Rahahan, Naft Tehran, Shahid Sepasi, Foolad Khoozestan, Shahin Booshehr, Sepahan Esfahan, Malavan Anzali, Naft Abadan, Peykan Tehran, Pas Hamedan, Alominium Hormozgan). The content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by experts and the internal consistency was proved in a pilot study. With regard to the normality of the hypotheses and the homogeneity of variance of the general score of the questionnaire and its subscales (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test), the data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA test (P˂0.05). Results showed no significant differences between score of ethical ideology (F=0.549, P=0.853) and idealism subscale (F=1.721, P=0.081) in the teams. But there was a significant difference between ethical ideology and relativism in the teams (F=2.050, P=0.032). It can be concluded that Iranian soccer players have ethical skepticism and this dubiety gradually spreads relativity in Iranian soccer and moves towards more situationism and less absolutism day to day.