Analysis of the factors affecting the phenomenon of financial repression in Iranian professional football

Introduction: The present study was conducted with the aim of identifying the factors influencing the phenomenon of financial suppression in professional football in Iran.

Methods: The research method was of a mixed type (qualitative-quantitative) and the qualitative part was done in the form of theme analysis. The statistical population in the qualitative section included people who are aware of the research subject, and according to the purposeful selection, the number of 12 people was determined as a sample. Also, in the quantitative part of this research, in addition to the elites in the field of sports management who are aware of the research topic, some managers of professional football clubs in Iran were also added to the statistical population. After the investigations, it was found that the number of these people included 120 people. According to Morgan's sample size table, 92 people were identified as the research sample. Finally, after the distribution and collection of the research questionnaires, 81 people cooperated with the current research. The sampling method in the quantitative part of the research was random. The research tools included semi-structured interviews and researcher-made questionnaires. The content validity of this questionnaire was investigated using the opinion of university professors and its construct validity was investigated using the factor analysis method. After calculating Cronbach's alpha, the reliability of this questionnaire was determined to be 0.82. In the qualitative part, specialized committees were used to check the validity of believability, transferability, and verifiability, as well as to check the reliability. In order to analyze the data, coding and structural equation method were used. All the process of data analysis was done in SPSS, PLS and MaxQD software.

Results: According to the results, the identified factors were classified into five categories: social attitudes, media bias, football persuasiveness, political approaches and management processes.

Conclusion: The results showed that the phenomenon of financial repression is rooted in five factors: social attitudes, media bias, football persuasiveness, political approaches, and management processes, among which social attitudes have a higher priority. In practice, confronting this phenomenon requires intervention at the level of public attitude formation through national media, reforming the intra-organizational governance of clubs, and creating transparency in financial decision-making processes.