Monitoring the Strategic Challenges Arising from the COVID-19 Pandemic in Sport Federations

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has posed significant challenges to the foundations of sports, and there is no doubt that careful monitoring of these challenges as a first step in the process of dealing with the consequences of this pandemic is of great importance. According to the significance of investigating the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on Sport setting, the purpose of this study was to monitor the strategic challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in sport federations. This research has been a qualitative exploratory study that has been conducted by using a thematic analysis method. The statistical population of the study included experts in the field of sports management with the experience of familiarity with the principles of futurology in sport, and according to the nature of the research, 16 experts were interviewed as a statistical sample through snowball sampling until reaching the theoretical saturation. The tool used in the research was a semi-structured interview. The thematic analysis of the data by Braun and Clarke’s (2006) method led to the exploration of 161 codes, 13 sub-themes and five main themes. The findings showed that "Event challenge", "Infrastructure challenge", "Financial challenge", "Communication and interaction challenge", and "Health challenge" are among the explored strategic challenges for sport federations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on these challenges in the field of research and implementation can be a key step in improving and strengthening management processes in sports federations during the COVID -19 pandemic as well as the post-corona era.