Identifying the cultural measures effective on enhancing security at Iranian football stadiums: A qualitative study

The aim of the present study was to find the cultural measures effective in enhancing security at Iranian football stadiums. It employed an exploratory qualitative research design and the conventional content analysis technique. Thirteen deep Semi-structured interviews were conducted with sports security and spectators' violent and aggression experts. The interviews were continued until they reach the data Theoretical saturation. The collected data were analyzed using open and axial coding. The validity of coding was confirmed by two co-experts by reviewing and controlling the accuracy of the extracted codes and re-coding the interviews. Based on the results, cultural activities aimed at improving the security of football stadiums in the form of seven main themes, including cultural support, planning, and management, academic promotion, Cultural Modeling and transmission of cultural models, acculturation, organizing sports agents, and finally Co-thinking and networking and 23 corresponding categories were extracted and explained. It seems that improving the attendance of spectators in football stadiums and acquainting these people with the customs and culture of attending the stadium through the cultural measures identified in this study and the internalization of positive moral and behavioral characteristics of spectators and other people present in the stadium can be effective in improving the security levels of stadiums.