Identifying and Ranking the Factors Affecting the Football Club Management System in Iran

The importance of the issue of the club system in football and the lack of this system in the country at the moment, warns the need for attention and accuracy in this area. Accordingly, this study was conducted with the aim of identifying and ranking the factors affecting the football club system in Iran. The research method was mixed method. The statistical population in the qualitative section consisted of professors of sports management, sports managers and professional football athletes who were interviewed by interviewing 25 of them to identify appropriate items that help to better understanding the factors affecting the club system. The population size in the qualitative section included 450 employees, which were collected by a questionnaire using the data of 250 people as a research sample. Samples in the qualitative part were selected based on purposeful sampling and in the quantitative part were selected in a cluster and random manner. Data analysis from the qualitative part in accordance with the research strategy was performed in three stages of open, axial and selective coding and in the quantitative part, causal explanation, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling and Friedman test were used. The results showed that the proposed research model includes 14 central categories that have been obtained by combining about 77 basic concepts. Accordingly, the comprehensive system of club management in the sport of football as a central category based on causal managerial, financial, environmental and legal conditions. These factors overlap by 0.67 and have a positive and significant effect on the football club system in Iran. Among these, managerial factors have the greatest impact on the country's football club system and financial, environmental and legal factors are in the next priorities.