Abstract

Objective: This survey identified and ranked the economic obstacles of club privatization in Iranian professional football league.
Methodology: The statistical population of this study included the directors of the premier football league and the first division football league, the chief committees of football federation and provincial football boards, professors of sport management and economics, and management who were familiar with the professional football Issues, as well as football news reporters and experts (N=173). The data collection tool was the structured questionnaire. Its validity was confirmed. To measure reliability of questionnaire, Cronbach’s alpha was used (α=0.80). Friedman test was used to rank the obstacles as well as Factor Analysis was used to identify factors.
Results: The results showed that the first obstacle of professional football club privatization was inappropriate allocation of television broadcast rights and pitch-side advertising among teams.
Conclusion: Increasing the effectiveness and efficiency, improvement of the system management, good results achievement, and budget increase of club are the most important aims of each sport club. The Economic problems towards the clubs privatization were the notable obstacles to reach these aims. So, overcoming these obstacles is the first step to succeed.