Measuring Off-field Factors Affecting the Technical and Ethical Performance of Professional Football Athletes

Football, as the most viewed event in stadiums overflowed with very many spectators, has turned into the most popular sport across the world. The purpose of this study was to compare the factors affecting the technical and ethical performance of professional football athletes off-field.

The research method of this research is descriptive survey implemented by completing a researcher-made questionnaire. The statistical population of the study included all athletes, referees, and coaches, members of the technical staffs and members of professional soccer clubs as well as members of the federation and football board of Tehran during the 18th round of the country premier league. The research sample was 384 people who were selected by purposeful sampling method and according to Morgan table. The validity of the questionnaire was evaluated by the professors of physical education and football experts and the reliability level was calculated to be 0.89 based on the Cronbach's alpha that was done by Exploratory Factor Analysis and Friedman test by SPSS version 24 and Liserl 8.8 software.

The present study was surveyed on the basis of effective factors off-field, that is the most important factors off-field were federation and family and the status of the club were the least important factor in the technical and ethical performance of professional football athletes.

Supervision and education can play an important role, and family as the first social unit can be also of importance in this respect. After family, the FFIRI should take basic measures for culture-building and detailed reflections on its activities.