Rugby Club Toulonnais (French pronunciation: [ʁyɡbi klœb tulɔnɛ]), also referred to as Rugby Club Toulon or simply Toulon, is a French professional rugby union club based in Toulon and competing in the Top 14. Located on the French Riviera, in the Provence region, the club plays its home games at the 17,500-capacity Stade Mayol.
Founded in 1908, Toulon is one of the most important and widely supported rugby clubs in France. Domestically, the club has won a total of four league titles, two Pro D2 titles and two Challenge Yves du Manoir. In international competitions, Toulon is the only one to have won the Heineken Cup/European Rugby Champions Cup three times in a row, and succeeded in winning the league/European cup double in 2014 too. Toulon has also won the EPCR Challenge Cup in 2023 after reaching the final on four occasions. The club established itself as a major force in domestic and European rugby in the 2010s when Jonny Wilkinson, Mathieu Bastareaud, Bakkies Botha, Matt Giteau and other rugby stars played at Mayol under Bernard Laporte's management.
A club renowned for its fans fervour and its stadium atmosphere, Toulon has rivalries with Toulouse and Clermont and has traditionally worn a red and black home kit since its inception. The club's crest features a sprig of lily of the valley, symbol of the club's benefactor and Belle Époque singer Félix Mayol who used to wear one on his jacket. A few times per season, important home matches against major teams are played at the 67,394-capacity Stade Vélodrome located in Marseille 50 kilometres (31 mi) away.
Contents
History
Rugby Club Toulonnais was founded on 3 June 1908 as a merger of Étoile Sportive Varoise and members of the Stade Varois, a club based in nearby La Seyne-sur-Mer. It took the club 23 years to reach the top of French rugby, when they won the 1931 championship against Lyon Olympique Universitaire (6–3, 2 tries to 1). The players were greeted by 30,000 people when they returned from Bordeaux, where the final had been held.
Toulon remained one of the top French clubs, but they lost four finals scattered over 35 years (1948, 1968, 1971 and 1985). The 1985 extra-time defeat by Stade Toulousain left them with many regrets, and playing a spectacular final (36–22) did nothing to alleviate the pain of losing. The Red and Black waited only two more years to finally lay their hands on the Bouclier de Brennus, as they defeated Racing at the Parc des Princes. The third title came in 1992, against Biarritz Olympique, in Serge Blanco's last match and his last chance to win the title.
For eight years, Toulon were not particularly successful and were in heavy financial trouble (a 10 million franc deficit) forced the Ligue Nationale de Rugby to demote them to the Second Division in July 2000. The club missed an immediate return the next year, going down in the final to Montauban, as only one club was promoted that year. It took them five more years to do so as Toulon went on to win the Pro D2 title. But despite immense popular support (gates averaged more than 12,000), and much enthusiasm, they managed to win only three games out of 26 and were relegated after only a season.
Toulon signs star players
A new president, Mourad Boudjellal, a Toulonnais who made his fortune in the comic strip business, promised to build a huge team. He said: "I invented the Top 15, with a team that could be competitive in the Top 14". He signed a high number of first-class players, some of them well above 30, like Jean-Jacques Crenca, Yann Delaigue, Gonzalo Quesada and Dan Luger. He created buzz around the team as he managed to sign former All Blacks captain Tana Umaga, who arrived in Toulon right after the end of the Air New Zealand Cup on 26 October 2006. The contract was rumoured to be around €300,000 (£200,000), which Boudjellal claimed to pay from his own pocket, for only eight to ten matches. In a 2010 interview, Boudjellal would say about his decision to pursue Umaga, "It was incredible, because we were in the second division and I was speaking with the best player in the world. But he said yes and came to play with Toulon."
Boudjellal continued to sign high-profile veteran players, including Australia captain and former all-time international caps leader George Gregan, reportedly paid €400,000 out of Boudjellal's pocket, All Blacks' former all-time scoring leader Andrew Mehrtens, and Jonny Wilkinson.
Back in Pro D2 for the 2006–07 season, Toulon finish fourth in the league, putting them in the promotion playoffs for a place in the Top 14, but they lost in the promotion semi-finals 21–17 at La Rochelle. The following season Toulon headed the table from early on, never dropping from the top spot on their way to clinching promotion with two rounds to spare. The 2008–09 season proved to be one of consolidation. Umaga had been handed the coaching reins, but as Boudjellal would later say, "The first season in the Top 14 was very difficult and I learned that Tana Umaga was not yet ready to give up playing – and that he's not a manager." The team managed to survive that season, using a late-season surge to avoid a relegation scare. Toulon had a much more successful 2009–10 campaign, with Wilkinson leading the charge. He would be named the top fly-half of the year in France by leading rugby publication Midi Olympique, and would also be recalled to the England national team. Domestically, Toulon finished second on the league table, losing out to Perpignan for the top spot on a tiebreaker. This finish gave them a spot in the 2010–11 Heineken Cup, and also a first-round bye in that season's Top 14 playoffs. Toulon's domestic campaign ended in the semi-finals with a 35–29 extra-time loss to eventual champion Clermont in Saint-Étienne.
Emblem
On the day of his arrival in Paris, on 1 May 1895, just before his first concert, Félix Mayol was met by a female friend at the station, who gave him some lily-of-the-valley, a flower people traditionally exchange on 1 May in France. He pinned it on his lapel, his concert was a success and Mayol, who was superstitious, made the lily-of-the-valley his personal emblem. It was taken up by the rugby club in 1921.
Stadium
In 1920, its stadium was inaugurated. It is named after Félix Mayol, a very popular concert hall singer from Toulon who had succeeded in Paris in the early 20th century. Shortly after World War I, he purchased what would be the stadium site and donated it to the club. It is one of the few French stadiums to be almost completely surrounded by the city and overlooks the Toulon bay and military harbour in the Mediterranean.
Charity cross-code matches
The club has played in cross-code charity matches with a half each of rugby union and football. On 18 July 2013 they played Olympique de Marseille in the first ever match of the kind at the Stade Mayol to benefit a local charity with Marc Lièvremont and Eric Cantona as the referees in either half, with Olympique de Marseille winning 36–35.
Two years later, the club played another such match to benefit a local children's charity at the Stade Mayol against France 98, the charity association team composed of France's 1998 FIFA World Cup winners, and won 33–26. Bernard Laporte served as one of the referees.
Honours
Heineken Cup / European Rugby Champions Cup
Champions (3): 2013, 2014, 2015
European Rugby Challenge Cup
Champions (1): 2023
Runners-up (4): 2010, 2012, 2020, 2022
French championship Top 14
Champions (4): 1931, 1987, 1992, 2014
Runners-up (9): 1948, 1968, 1971, 1985, 1989, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017
Challenge Yves du Manoir
Champions (2): 1934, 1970
Runners-up (3): 1939, 1954, 1983
Pro D2
Champions (2): 2005, 2008
Runners-up (1): 2001
Finals results
Current squad
The Toulon squad for the 2025–26 season is:
Notable former players
This is a list of former players in alphabetical order showing nationality and the period played for the club.