ANALYSIS OF PERCEPTIONS OF IRANIAN FANS OF VIDEOASSISTANT-REFEREES IN ELITE SOCCER

In the past decades, technology had a profound impact on sport (Ratten, ۲۰۱۹). Therefore, there has been considerable investment in the use of technology to ensure better accuracy of referees’ decisions in a number of areas of sports.Video-assistant-referee (VAR) system in football is one of them.Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the fans’ opinions of VAR. Fans are amongst the most important stakeholders in sports. regarding VAR as their opinion matters a lot. To answer the research question, a qualitative research design and content analysis method were used. Among the various qualitative research methods, the content analysis method was considered appropriate to achieve the research objectives, because Brown et al. (۲۰۱۶) believe that this method is useful for understanding the individual processes of a particular phenomenon. In this study, the inductive approach was used to identify the themes and the six-step analysis process presented by Brown and Clark (۲۰۰۶) was used. The population and the statistical sample included all the fans of the three football teams of Esteghlal, Sepahan and Persepolis. The sampling method was purposeful. Finally, in-depth interviews were conducted with ۹ members of the statistical community through the WhatsApp social network and data were collected. Data collection continued until theoretical saturation was reached. The results indicate that the perception of fans of VAR includes two main themes of positive attitude with four sub-themes; Competition, referee performance, justice and fair play and negative attitude with two sub-themes; Decreased enthusiasm and decreased attractiveness. VAR can be said to increase competition between teams, help referees avoid too much pressure, and reduce the impact of human error. Also, fans believe that VAR brings justice and fair play in football, because there is no discrimination in decision-making based on VAR. In addition, fans believe that VAR reduces the attractiveness of football and reduces the enthusiasm of fans. The results of this study can help sports organizations to provide a better picture of VAR after recognizing the positive and negative views of fans.

کلیدواژه ها:

competition ، fair play ، justice ، Soccer ، Sport Technology