Analyzing Key Actors in the Governance of Elite Sports in Iran: A Mixed-Methods Approach

This study, employing an exploratory mixed-methods approach, identifies and prioritizes the key actors in the governance of elite sports in Iran. In the qualitative phase, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 19 experts and coded using Braun and Clarke’s six-step thematic analysis framework. The results revealed four main categories of actors: governmental institutions, sports organizations, athletes and technical staff, and international organizations. In the quantitative phase, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied to the judgments of 25 experts to estimate the relative weights of these categories (all pairwise comparison matrices showed acceptable consistency with CR < 0.1). The findings indicated that governmental institutions (0.325) and international organizations (0.304) play the most significant roles in shaping governance, while sports organizations (0.225) and particularly athletes and technical staff (0.145) hold lesser weight. This pattern reflects a concentration of decision-making at domestic policy-making and transnational regulatory levels, alongside the marginalization of grassroots stakeholders. Accordingly, it is recommended to redefine the roles of actors, institutionalize the principles of transparency, accountability, and participation, revise statutes to strengthen the involvement of athletes and coaches in decision-making, establish independent evaluation mechanisms, and foster constructive engagement with international bodies. The novelty of this research lies in providing a systematic framework for mapping the actor network and assessing their priorities in the Iranian context, which can inform policy reforms and the design of practical governance interventions.