The Relationship between Social Responsibility and the Image and Identity of Iran National Football Team

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between social responsibility and the image and identity of the national team of Iran. The research method was descriptive and correlation and as the data were normal, stepwise regression was used. The study population consisted of the authorities of Football Federation, league organization, professional and championship deputy of Ministry of Sport and print and virtual media of sport fields. 77 subjects were selected as the sample by convenience sampling method. Cheng-Wook (2012) social responsibility questionnaire, Winters and Graf (1996) team image questionnaire and Gunner and Swanson team identity questionnaire (2002) were used to collect data. The results showed that the ethical, legal and economic components had the most relationship with the image of the national team and less relationship with team identity. Among the social responsibility components, moral, economic and legal responsibilities had the most relationship with the image of national team. In the first step, moral responsibility explained 72% of the variance of the image of the national team. In the second step, moral and economic responsibilities explained a total of 83% of the variance of the image of the national team. In the third step, moral, economic and legal responsibilities explained a total of 84% of the variance of the image of national team. Also, no predictive relationship was found between social responsibility components and identity. Football Federation authorities can prioritize their measurements as ethical, economic and legal components in order to strengthen the image and identity of the national team through employing social responsibility.