Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 sport management, Isfahan university
2 sport management, Azad univertiy
Abstract
The purpose of this research was a Comparative Study of how to finance the professional football clubs in
Iran and England's premier leagues. That was an applied research and implemented in descriptive &
analytical method. Data collection was done through investigating of documents and also with use of
Researcher made questionnaire. Face and content validity of the questionnaire has been studied by
professionals and financial experts’ opinion and Construct validity was confirmed using exploratory factor
analysis. Validity of the questionnaire has been obtained through Cronbach's alpha (α=0/89). The
statistical population includes Statistical research community, all football clubs in Iran's Premier League
and England that were selected available three clubs from England and five clubs from Iran as samples.
Result showed there was a significant difference between methods of financing English & Iranian
professional football clubs. Most of Iranian clubs funding by government and industry-based (65%) while
most of English clubs are private and funding by television broadcasting rights(31%),matchdayincome(
21%) and Cash flow from business(22%). Some major barriers to financing Iran professional
football league clubs are as follows the state-run clubs, Lack of financial transparency, IRIB rejection to
pay the media broadcasting right to the clubs, Failure to comply with copyright law in Iran, Football
competition schedules, club marketing management, lack of awareness of club manager from new
methods of financing, Limited use of creative directors with financial and business expertise in different
levels of football industry.
Keywords
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