Presenting a Paradigmatic Pattern of enhancement Diplomacy of international sports events hosting in free trade zone: With emphasis on the Kish Free Zone

The aim of this research is designing a paradigmatic Pattern for enhancement of hosting international sports events and the emphasis lies on the Kish Free Zone. As a qualitative study, this research is conducted using an approach based on the grounded theory. The statistical population is comprised of sport management specialists and experts in the area of holding sports events in free zone, who are selected as contributors using a Snowball sampling approach. In order to gather data semi-structured interviews are used and after 11th interview, theoretical saturation has been accomplished. In order to determine data reliability and validity, two methods of recoding and reviewing by expert contributors are implemented. The pivotal topic is the diplomacy of the enhancement of hosting international sports events in Free trade zone. The results revealed that using strategies like taking advantage of elite athletes as diplomacy ambassadors, applying physical and managerial measures in stadiums for the presence of women and establishing an active diplomacy working group in the Ministry of Sport, would lead to the successful hosting of international sports events. Finally, after strategy formulation, the final pattern is presented considering causality, contextual and intervening conditions.