Strategies for organizing sports events safely and healthily during COVID-19 at the university level: perceptions of Indonesian and Hungarian coach

Purpose. The COVID-19 outbreak had led difficulties in carrying out sports events and limited research investigated the strategies in organizing sports events during COVID-19 generated a gap and novelty in this research. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the perceptions from coaches about strategies in organizing sport events at the university level. Material and Methods. This research used a qualitative with phenomenological method. Participants involved in this study were coaches who had experience in organizing sports events, which came from the State University of Surabaya (Indonesia) (n = 5) and the University of Pecs (Hungary) (n = 5). This study used in-depth interviews with participants during 30 minutes. Data was analyzed using qualitative thematics statistical, namely copying, understanding the text and coding into three themes Results. The results indicate that most of the coaches applied various strategies in organizing sports events, for example limiting the number of participants, implementation time, physical distancing, using masks and hand sanitizers. In addition, they argued that technology and funding were supporting factors to assist the success in organizing sports events. Apart from that, it was necessary to minimize the inhibiting factors in order to optimize the implementation. Conclusions. Thus, this study confirms that to achieve the success in organizing sports events at the university level, it is necessary to consider the strategies and supporting factors. This research contributes to existing knowledge by providing information and scientific insight to coaches, athletes and stakeholders, to implement the appropriate strategy in organizing sports event during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.