Toulouse v Lorient to stage France’s first ‘Most Inclusive Match’ with LFP and partners

Toulouse FC will host FC Lorient on March 21 as the ‘Most Inclusive Match,' an LFP-backed initiative designed to spotlight and scale matchday accessibility for supporters with disabilities across French professional football.The event, delivered with World Football Summit and Integrated Dreams, sits within the LFP’s #1TEAM programme and is being positioned as a template for Ligue 1 McDonald’s and Ligue 2 BKT clubs.Cindy Johnson-Tufi, president of the Toulouse FC Foundation and the club’s endowment fund, said: “Hosting the Most Inclusive Match at the Stadium is a great source of pride for Toulouse FC. For several years, the club has been working to make the stadium a place open to all, where every supporter can fully experience football.”Toulouse are the first French club to host the event after three editions in Spain with Real Betis (2023), Atlético de Madrid (2024) and Real Sociedad (2025).Matchday operations will include an accessible shuttle service, audio description, visual-assistance support, sensory-friendly spaces designed for fans with sensory and autistic needs, dedicated trained staff and public-awareness activity around the venue.The build-up begins on March 19 with ‘Cap vers l’emploi’, a disability-focused jobs event at the Stadium delivered with France Travail, alongside a roundtable on workplace inclusion and an accessible stadium visit for local associations.A separate programme at Toulouse Business School will follow, including a conference on inclusion and innovation in education and business, plus immersive awareness workshops run with students.On matchday, the stadium forecourt will be turned into a fan-facing awareness zone with partner associations delivering demonstrations and participation activities, including blind football and wheelchair rugby sessions.The most visible broadcast and brand moment will come via the shirts. Toulouse and Lorient players will wear kits without their names, replaced by seven pictograms representing different disability categories, as part of a wider campaign creative used across matchday assets.The pictograms will also appear within the pre-match protocol, including a centre-circle banner, and will run through on-site branding tied to the ‘The One’ identity used in LFP activations.Players will enter the pitch accompanied by children with disabilities and non-disabled children, while the ceremonial kick-off will be delivered by actor Mayane and Paris 2024 Paralympic badminton gold medallist Lucas Mazur.Marian Otamendi, co-founder and chief executive of World Football Summit, said: “The football is the most popular sport in the world because, in theory, everyone can play it and everyone can enjoy it. Yet the reality is that millions of people with disabilities still cannot access a match live.”Ligue 1+ will carry an on-screen graphic throughout the broadcast and a dedicated feature in the pre-match programming to promote the initiative and its services.Commercial partners are also building activations into the week. McDonald’s France will take part in the jobs event and will use its ‘Équipier du Match’ programme to give an employee with a disability a role in delivering the match ball at kick-off.Essilor has created a bespoke player-of-the-match trophy linked to the campaign’s visual identity, with Mayane presenting it to the winner selected by fans.Sports-betting and fantasy partners MPP and MPG will run dedicated in-app content, while Fantasy Ligue 1 will offer a special prize tied to the fixture.The LFP is using the match to reinforce changes already embedded in club compliance. Since the 2024-25 season, the league has required clubs to appoint a disability lead within the Club Licence framework, while assessing online ticketing accessibility and the availability of clear accessibility information.Jérôme Belaygue, LFP director of communications and CSR, said: “With the Most Inclusive Match, the LFP is proud to deliver, alongside Toulouse FC, World Football Summit and Integrated Dreams, an initiative that becomes concrete this Saturday with practical measures to improve the experience of supporters with disabilities.”The LFP has also been running operational benchmarking and research, including an annual club accessibility review, a comparative study with other European leagues and a biennial satisfaction survey of supporters with disabilities.Its first satisfaction survey, conducted between April and June 2025, drew 716 responses from supporters with disabilities and accompanying fans, with high satisfaction scores cited for access to seats and travel to the stadium, while highlighting areas such as welcome and seating comfort as improvement priorities.