Effective Factors in Improving the Sports Diplomacy of Iran and the Arab Countries of the Persian Gulf Region

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Sports management, Faculty of Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran

Abstract

Today, sports diplomacy with different countries is one way to develop the sport at an international level. The current paper was conducted with the approach of improving the diplomacy of sports federations of Iran and Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The paper is qualitative, applied, and was carried out using Colaizzi's phenomenological methodology in 2022. Moreover, Participants in the research included individuals related to the subject. Furthermore, the sampling method was purposeful, and until the extraction of completely non-repeated strategies from the interviews; 21 interviews were conducted in a semi-structured manner. Factors affecting the improvement of the diplomacy of the sports federations of Iran and Arab states of the Persian Gulf consist of 75 primary strategies in the form of 11 main categories including: media content, behavioral norms, infrastructure development, management strategy, political dimensions, security dimensions, sports interactions, international solidarity, sports communication, national prestige, and educational experiences. Some of the solutions identified include benefitting from popular social networks such as Instagram to share common content with Arabic language sports pages, no provocative interviews by athletes and coaches, preventing spectators from chanting racist slogans, facilitating the entry conditions of Arab spectators in international sports competitions in Iran and mutual support of the sports federations in Iran and Arab states of the Persian Gulf to the sports representatives of the Middle East region in sports events at the world level.

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