National football leagues as a source of soft power

Abstract

This study seeks to determine if the development of a country's national football league is significantly correlated with its soft power. Moreover, this research aims to provide a better understanding of the factors that contribute to the cultural soft power of a country besides sporting mega-events and develops a novel soft power and sport diplomacy managerial perspective. We first estimated the model using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and then applied the General Linear Model (GLM) to enhance the robustness of the analysis. The results suggest that investment in football development can powerfully influence soft power. The league's cultural heritage and its talented players contribute more than the rest of the variables to increase the soft power score. Institutions and organizations from countries with relatively low soft power could still benefit from investment in football development. Finally, this study highlights the importance of the football industry and its historical heritage preservation as critical elements within a country's soft power strategy.