Investigating the factors affecting the development of Iranian women's sport championship

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors affecting the development of the Iranian women's sport championship. This is a qualitative research that is categorized into direct content analysis; the data were gathered by existing literature and 15 interviews with experts selected using purposive sampling. The analysis of existing literature revealed three categories of infrastructure, technical-sport, and social contexts influencing the development of women's championship sport. In the next step, the framework through semi-structured interviews, extended and completed. As a result of the analysis, 43 codes and 11 subcategories were extracted. The infrastructure factors include four categories of popular sports facilities, exclusive women’s facilities, income sources, and administrative structures; Technical-sports factors include professional development, talent management and general preparation; and social contexts influencing the development of women's championship sport include access to human resources, eligibilities, social support, and conventional limits. Therefore, the development of women's championship sport requires an improvement in social status, basic infrastructure, and technical factors; and social issues seem to be more fundamental and important. In order to accelerate the development of women's championship sports, it is necessary to consider interactions with domestic influential groups and international institutions, as well as inter-sectoral cooperation.