Introduction: This research aims to evaluate the sustainable competitiveness efficiency of Iran's Premier League football clubs, utilizing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Gap Analysis.
Methodology: This study is an applied research in terms of purpose, descriptive-analytical in nature, and survey-based in its approach. The statistical population comprises all 16 Iran Premier League football clubs in the 2024-2025 season, examined through a census method. Required data were collected secondarily from official financial reports of clubs, the Iran Premier League Organization, and the Football Federation. Input variables included financial sponsors' revenue, television broadcast rights revenue, potential threats, and infrastructure ownership. The SBM model within the DEA framework and DEA Solver software were used for efficiency measurement. Gap analysis was also employed to examine the difference between current and benchmark efficiency levels.
Findings: Efficiency analysis results indicated that out of 16 clubs, 12 were efficient (efficiency equal to one) and 4 were inefficient. In the super-efficiency ranking, Foolad Khuzestan Club emerged as the most efficient with an efficiency of 1.6634, while Esteghlal Khuzestan Club was ranked last with the lowest efficiency of 0.8210. Gap analysis and slack values clearly showed that inefficient clubs, especially Esteghlal Khuzestan and Nassaji Mazandaran, faced significant shortfalls in political-legal process and economic capacity outputs, as well as surpluses in financial sponsors and television broadcast rights inputs . Furthermore, correlated T-test results confirmed a significant difference between the current and target scores for the political-legal process and club economic capacity variables at the 95% confidence level.