The Reasons, Obstacles and Consequences of Professionalization in Selection of Sport Federations of Iran

When discussing the concept of professionalization in sports, the payments to the athletes may be of the most immediate pictures which may appear in people’s minds, but the actual and deeper meaning of the concept of professionalization differs than that of its everyday perception. The present study aims at identifying the reasons, obstacles and consequences of professionalization in selection of sport federations of Iran. The data presented here has been collected applying two-step Delphi method from semi-structured interviews with experts on professionalization of sports and subsequently analyzed applying hermeneutic-circle approach. Based on the results of the study, five themes, 120 primary codes, 38 sub-stratums and 15 stratums were recognized for the reasons, obstacles and consequences of professionalization of sports organizations. Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that identifying the reasons, obstacles and consequences of professionalization can pay a great contribution to the sports federations of Iran in order to make money, also the analysis of the exterior and interior of sports federations and identifying the potentials of professionalization in their context can expedite the process of professionalization and improvement of sports federations.