Ahead of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, FIFA, the French Football Association and the Local Organising Committee (LOC) have co-authored a Disabled Spectators Guide for disabled fans attending the tournament.

The tournament, taking place in France, kicks off on Friday 7 June as the hosts take on South Korea at Parc des Princes. Matches will be played across a total of nine host venues.

The Disabled Spectators Guide includes important advanced information for travelling disabled fans on how to reach each host stadium, as well as information on the accessible facilities and services available on matchdays.

To download the Disabled Spectators Guide in English, please click here. A French version of the guide is also available to download here.

One of the accessible services available at the tournament will be audio-descriptive commentary. Partially sighted and blind fans will be able to tune into live audio-descriptive commentary in French at four of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup venues.  

Audio-descriptive commentary is a dedicated service that enables partially sighted and blind spectators to enjoy an inclusive matchday experience alongside their fellow fans. Expertly-trained commentators will provide a far greater level of detail in describing the match, including information on the atmosphere, surrounding ambience and any other information that helps to paint a fuller picture.

 Listeners can tune into the service in the following host venues:

• Reims: listeners can collect receivers from the JONQUET and BATTEUX ticket counters at the stadium
• Lyon: listeners can collect receivers from gate C at the customer service/special access ticket counters
• Grenoble: listeners can collect receivers from gate 7 at the stadium
• Paris: listeners can tune into the service using their own personal radios and compatible mobile devices (please note: many iPhones are currently not FM radio compatible), on 107.9FM MHz.

The FIFA Women’s World Cup will close on 7 July, when the world champions will be crowned in Lyon.

For information on how to purchase accessibility tickets for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, please visit https://tickets.fwwc19.fr/uk.

If you are a disabled spectator attending the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, or you are attending the tournament with a disabled spectator, we would be keen to hear about your matchday experiences. The CAFE Matchday Experience Evaluation Form is available to download here. Your feedback and photos can be very useful to CAFE, our partners and other disabled fans. For more information or for alternate language or accessible versions, please contact CAFE at [email protected] or call us on +44(0)208 065 5108.

A version of this article is also available in French.

Published 03/06/2019