Club IV | Toulouse FC

Toulouse Fans unveil a tifo prior to a home game against OM, a game in which the away fans greatly outnumbered the home supporters | Photo Credit

One of the clearest consequences of the postponement / cancellation of the football season around the globe is the rise of ‘football philosophers’. WhatsApp groups and newspaper columns that have been traditionally reserved for discussion of the most banal of football incidences: handballs, penalties, transfers - have instead been flooded with debates surrounding the wider role of the beautiful game - Should the season be scrapped? How can football return safely? If the season is stopped, how will winners / relegations / promotions be decided?

These philosophical footballing questions have given rise to varying responses from the world’s leading leagues - with the top divisions in Spain, England, Italy and Germany deciding to let their championships belatedly play out. France’s Ligue 1, however, was cancelled following the French government’s decision to ban all meaningful sporting occasions until September at the earliest.

Nevertheless, even the most impassioned defender of cancellation of Ligue 1 would have to have felt uneasy at the news that Toulouse FC, who sat mired to the bottom of the league after amassing a paltry 13 points prior to the abandonment of the 2019/2020 season, would be spared relegation following an appeal to France’s highest court. But just how exactly has the only football team in France’s fourth biggest city found itself in such a lowly position, relying on legal intervention to survive?

The answer to this question is largely rooted in French culture. Toulouse is capital of France’s Occitanie region, in the south-west of the country. Football has traditionally played second fiddle to Rugby in the city, creating a rugby-mad pocket in an otherwise football-mad country.

Fans pack Toulouse’s central square as Stade Toulousain return home as the champions of European rugby once again | Photo Credit

This historical indifference towards football in the region has had a profound impact on the fortunes of the club. While most major cities in European Footballing powerhouses can expect to produce teams capable of challenging for league titles and European recognition; Toulouse’s football team has experienced a far less storied history, usually fading into mid-table obscurity, interspersed with periods in France’s second division. 

Indeed the city was even without a major football club for a brief period between 1967 to 1970, after the first iteration of Toulouse FC sold both its players and place in the French first division to Paris’ Red Star FC, in a move more befitting a North American baseball franchise than a French football club.

The highlight for the club came in the 2007 season, where a Toulouse team spearheaded by giant Swedish striker, Johan Elmander, qualified for Champions’ League qualifying rounds only to be promptly thumped by Liverpool 5-0 on aggregate, a team from a city of similar size to Toulouse, but of considerably different footballing pedigree. A less than inspiring European high point considering that Stade Toulousain, the city’s rugby team, have been champions of Europe on a joint-record, four occasions.

The city’s preference for the oval-shaped ball, combined with the club’s less than illustrious history, has led to the team’s home stadium, the Stadium Municipal de Toulouse, being amongst the most under-attended in Ligue 1, with an average attendance of just 14,200 turning out up to the 33,000 capacity stadium during the 2019/2020 season, in spite of close to 1.4 million people residing in the city.

However, not that the passion that the club’s fans have for ‘Les Violets’ has been diminished by the lack of success, choosing instead  to revel in TFC’s rivalry with Girondins de Bordeaux, as well as, the rare occasions where the club has successfully managed to extricate itself from a tight relegation struggle.

TFC famously managed to survive relegation to Ligue 2 on the last day of the 2015/2016 season. Having been firmly bottom of the Ligue 1 table at Christmas, Toulouse managed to win an unprecedented five out of their last nine league matches, including scoring twice in the last 12 minutes of their final match away to Angers SCO,  securing the three points that they desperately needed in order to qualify for a promotion / relegation playoff with AC Ajaccio, which they would go on to win 4-0 on aggregate.

The scenes in the away end on that day reaffirmed the enduring magic of the beautiful game, as supporters of ‘Les Violets’ erupted in irrepressible celebration, regardless of their city’s traditional disdain for football, regardless of the club’s historical underachievement for a team housed in one of France’s largest cities. Ultimately, the best fans are those who are mindful of their club’s history, but refuse to be overly burdened by it.

Unfortunately, in spite of Toulouse’s status as a Ligue 1 club being preserved in the unlikeliest of fashions this season; there is precious little evidence to suggest that their lowly standing within France’s elite club competition will be improved upon any time soon, not that will bother the diehard TFC fans who will still insist on showing up to Toulouse’s Stadium Municipal - a rare footballing oasis in the heart of rugby country.