French Cycling Federation(FFC) already has a plan to build a French "Team Sky", to produce the first French Tour de France winner. FFC managing director Queguiner now talks more to cyclingnews.com, reveals some important details of the French Sky plan. The team will have an international roster, maybe an international title sponsor, and the merger talk with existing French teams is not there yet.

Firstly, the team will not be French-only.

"We would like to have a French rider who can win the Tour de France, but if tomorrow, on the road, there is a British or Spanish Tour winner from this team, then we will be very happy, because that means the team exists already." says Queguiner. After all, the team could be founded in two or three years, and the French hope to win a Grand Tour can only rely on Pinot(FDJ) or Barguil(Giant-Shimano), and each one is a long shot from winning the Tour.

And as a result, the French Sky team will focus on younger French riders,

"Afterwards, we will see if our junior and under-23 riders, who at the moment are at a very high international level, could become the winner of the Tour. But we are talking about sport, so you never know."

Regarding the launching time of the team, FFC previously gave an rough estimate, 2015. This target might be a bit too ambitious, though, with the title sponsor unknown and no riders committed to the project.

Queguiner agrees, "We know that this team will start. We would like in 2015. If we have to wait for 2016, it doesn’t matter."

FFC is now relying on SportFive company to find a title sponsor for them. Tong Cuong, representing the SportFive company, talks about the hard task to gather the required 20 million euro annual budget.

"We are looking everywhere, in France and abroad. We see today in sport that there are a lot of new brands coming into this area. It might be a sponsor coming from the cycling world but it might be a sponsor coming from outside, an unexpected one. It can be French or it can be an international one."

France already have 3 world tour teams in FDJ, AG2R and Europcar, which offers both competition and opportunity for the French Sky project. The competition part is obvious, the opportunity part lies in the possibility that the FFC will look to form a merger of sorts with one of the existing teams.

However, none of the three teams is in any merger talks, as of now, including the previously rumored FDJ team.

"For sure, a company like FDJ has received this presentation and has to consider it, of course," says Queguiner, "At the moment it's too early to speak about saying that the current FDJ could become this team because we are talking about 2015 and FDJ exists at this moment, it's going on and we're creating something else."