The Role of Human Resources in the Iran national under-23 football team’s failure to qualify for the Olympic Games

The purpose of this study is to investigating the role of human resources in the Iran national under-23 football team’s failure to qualify for the Olympic Games. This research is qualitative-quantitative and it is an applied study that has been done in the field. The statistical population in the qualitative part were football and sport management experts. The statistical population in the quantitative section were formed by 150 current coaches, supervisors and managers of national football teams, and Iranian premier league teams in the adult and under-23 categories, as well as former coaches and supervisors of national teams in the adult and under-23 categories. The sampling method in the qualitative part was in the form of snowball until theoretical saturation was achieved. In the quantitative part, Convenience sampling method was used. The number of statistical samples was determined 108 people based on Morgan table. Semi-structured interviews and a researcher-made questionnaire were used to collect research information. In order to analyze data, descriptive statistics methods and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO), exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and Friedman test were used. The results indicate that 23 cases in the form of 3 components including managers, coaches and staff, and players are involved in the failure of the Iran national under-23 football team to qualify for the Olympic games. It is recommended that the responsible organizations make the necessary efforts to remove the existing obstacles.