Identifying the Drivers of Institutionalizing the Desired Culture of Support in Football

The fan is one of the characteristics of popular culture in industrial societies; In order to develop the desired culture of advocacy by adopting policies and determining the appropriate structures and desirable contexts, bedrocks are necessary. The purpose of this study is to identify the drivers of institutionalizing the desired culture of support in Iranian football. The present study is applied in terms of purpose and in terms of nature-based on future research, analytical and exploratory methods. The required information was obtained through semi-structured in-depth qualitative interviews with 23 professors of physical education at the university, scientific (academic) and practical (organizational) managers of sports, coaches, referees and members of the media as experts, including 5 drivers and 36 main indicators. Based on these variables, the Delphi questionnaire was designed and provided to 13 experts in sports management, marketing and events across the country to confirm the final items. To analyze the collected data, a matrix of 36 in 36 cross-effects was used by Mick Mac software. Based on the study’s findings, 5 general categories of propellants (effective to affective) including moral propulsion, incentive, and legal propulsion, nurture and educational propulsion, infrastructure and basic propulsion, and media propulsion were identified. Institutionalizing a culture of advocacy is time-consuming and requires planning for its future based on key effective indicators in order to make the desired culture of Iranian support equal to that of developed countries.