Monitoring the Coping Strategies to Address the Strategic Challenges Posed by COVID-19 Pandemic in Sport Federations

With the outbreak of the COVID-19, the focus on challenges posed by the pandemic was more than considering the coping strategies. Given to the significance of coping with strategic challenges of COVID-19 in Sport, the aim of this study was to monitor the coping opportunities to address the strategic challenges of COVID-19 in sport federations. This research was a qualitative exploratory study through a thematic analysis. The statistical population included experts of sports management with the experience of familiarity with the principles of futurology, and according to the research nature, 16 experts were interviewed through snowball sampling until reaching theoretical saturation. The tool used in the research was a semi-structured interview. The intra-subject agreement method was used to ensure the reliability of the interviews, and the validity was confirmed by consulting sport management experts and reviewing based on their opinions. The thematic analysis by Braun and Clarke’s (2006) method led to the extraction of 188 codes, 15 sub-themes and five main themes. The findings demonstrated that "Redefining the jobs", "Virtual capacity creation", "Supportive approaches", "Upgrade and updating", and "Public Relations and communications" are among the opportunities required to address the strategic challenges posed by COVID-19 in sport federations. According to findings, focusing on the explored strategies and attempts to maximum use of these strategies in the field of research and implementation can be a key step in improving management processes and decreasing Corona consequences in sports federations.