LYON. France. Nov 10: Watchmakers Festina Tuesday announced a sponsorship deal with world champion’s France for next year's European Championships in Holland and Belgium. reports AFP.

Festina become the French football team's official watchmakers with the new deal.

Each player in the French national team will be presented with a watch engraved with their own name In the next few days at their Clairefontaine training base.

Festina have long been involved in sport and back the Festina cycling team. That gave them some unwanted headlines in 1998 when the team was thrown out of the Tour de France after their masseur was arrested on the Franco-Belgian border with a car boot fun of drugs.

All the key members of the disgraced team have now left the outfit.