Designing the Model of Iran's Football Diplomacy Based on Grounded Theory

The study is to design a model of football diplomacy in Iran, which is based on the Grounded Theory and through interviews with 23 managers, experts, faculty members, legislators and diplomats and media practitioners who use the Snowball method and selection of experts with maximum oscillation was done. The data were analyzed through three open, axial, and selective coding steps through Nvivo 10 software. The findings, in three stages of coding, identified and categorized the main and secondary categories of football diplomacy: the causal conditions (football nature, structural factors, cultural policies, international politics, Management policies, media policies, professional sport policies); background conditions (economic factors, factors related to government and politics, cultural and social factors, measurement criteria and policies related to FIFA); strategies (international actions, structural actions, cultural and social actions, actions related to expedition teams, business and economic actions), and consequences (dignity and prestige International, development of peace and friendship, isolationism, national identity and convergence, and development of sport tourism, power generation and upgrading of skills). Finally, the paradigm and theoretical model of football diplomacy were formed, As a result of football diplomacy in Iran, according to Progressive constraints that have been affected by different conditions are far from reaching the desired and expected status. Therefore, the application of some strategies will be effective in achieving the desired situation and can somewhat have the desired outcomes for diplomacy.