Designing a Model of Iranian Football Diplomacy in International Relations with a Transnational Approach

The aim of this research was to design a model of Iranian football diplomacy with a data-driven approach. This study was conducted using constructivism in grounded theory to generate theory from data; the data of the research were collected through purposive and snowball sampling and based on semistructured indepth interviews in the fields of football, diplomacy, Iranian football federation and international arenas.Five questions were obtained based on the studies conducted in this field. The interview continued according to the question and answer process.Then, using a constructivist approach, the codes and themes were obtained and the structural model of the research was designed by examining the relationship between them. With13interviews that continued to the theoretical saturation,351initial codes were obtained.38focused codes such as: economic development, standards of the International Football Federation, political conditions of the country were obtained. Ultimately,13core codes including: achievements of Iranian football, management, political, technical indicators, reporting, economic conditions, lobbying, efficiency, relations and communications, women, bias of international references and their desired standards, and also growth and development were obtained.Data analysis in MAXqda showed the impact of the special role of core indicators at the national and international levels for the development of Iranian football in sports diplomacy in order to provide a suitable environment for the promotion of the country’s football at the international level.The results of the research led to the design of a model for the country’s football diplomacy for planning managers to achieve the desired level of development of Iranian football at the international level.