TAG Heuer, the world leader in prestigious and high-end chronographs, has proudly announced the signing of football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo to a long-term partnership as a TAG Heuer Brand Ambassador.

Two-time Ballon d’Or winner, Real Madrid forward and Captain of the Portugal team for the coming World Cup in Brazil, Cristiano Ronaldo joins an illustrious roster of TAG Heuer sports stars and celebrities that includes film actors Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio, WTA tennis champion Maria Sharapova, Formula One World Champion Jenson Button, World Rally Champion Sebastien Ogier and the entire crew of 2013 America’s Cup winner Oracle Team USA. Past members have included actors Brad Pitt and Uma Thurman, golfing great Tiger Woods, and the most legendary names in the history of Formula One, from Ayrton Senna to Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.

“TAG Heuer is by far the best at what it does,” said Cristiano Ronaldo, “and has been for more than 150 years. No other luxury brand has such strong ties to the highest levels of sports. It is incredibly glamorous yet also so unconventional, and we share exactly the same determination: to totally change the game, push the limits and make our own rules. It is a great honor to be a part of such a powerful and pioneering legacy.”

“Every TAG Heuer creation celebrates intense life in the contemporary arena, and no individual represents this more powerfully than Cristiano,” said TAG Heuer CEO Stephane Linder. “Like TAG Heuer, Cristiano demands perfection and pushes himself harder than anyone in his domain. This is the first time we enter the world of football, and it’s a perfect fit to do that with Cristiano, opening a new trend and a new way to engage with our fans. Sports is part of our tradition because we share the same values: self motivation and discipline, pushing one’s limit, never giving up. We’ve been in the sports world since signing on as official chronograph of the 1920 Olympic Games. We started timing ski events in 1928, Formula One and regatta racing in the 1970s. Adding football alongside our longstanding link to motorsports, especially with its number 1 icon and most powerful player, is incredibly exciting.”

Born on the island of Madeira in 1985, Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro (named Cristiano Ronaldo or CR7) first played professionally in his native Portugal before joining Manchester United in 2003, where he scored more than 100 goals in 6 years. He became the most expensive footballer in history when he moved to the prestigious club of Real Madrid in 2009, and his current contract makes him the highest-paid player in the world. Portugal’s top goal scorer of all time and the first top European league player to reach 40 goals in a single season in two consecutive years, he scored an astonishing 69 goals in 59 appearances in 2013, and was thus awarded his second Ballon d’or in January 2014. Several time winner of National Championships and Cups in Portugal, England and Spain, winner of the Champions League in 2008, no doubt Ronaldo will continue to break records in the coming months and years, as he pushes his play to new levels.

Cristiano Ronaldo and TAG Heuer. Breaking the rules. Changing the game.

Founded in Saint-Imier in 1860 by Edouard Heuer, TAG Heuer has marked the history of luxury watchmaking, especially in the fields of chronographs and ultimate precision. A legend in prestige Swiss watchmaking and one of its most innovative brands, TAG Heuer has built on its active commitment in the sports world to create the most accurate timing instruments and wrist timepieces in the world. In 2012, thanks to the lessons learned through these achievements, TAG Heuer won the world’s most coveted watchmaking award, the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix Aiguille d’Or. TAG Heuer is unrelenting in its quest for innovation, excellence, performance and prestige. This ambition is reflected in its sponsorships with F1 McLaren Mercedes team and its World Champion Jenson Button and young talent Kevin Magnussen, the Automobile Club of Monaco for the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix, and the new FIA Formula E Championship, the world’s top competition for electrically powered racing cars. TAG Heuer is also engaged with Oracle Team USA, 2013 winner of sailing’s most prestigious trophy, the 34th America’s Cup. The brand also partners with actress Cameron Diaz, actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Shah Rukh Khan and Chen Dao Ming, World Rally Champion Sebastien Ogier and WTA tennis champion Maria Sharapova, sharing with them the same values: human achievement and true innovation.

TAG Heuer is the number one industrial manufacturer of 100% in-house Swiss chronograph movements: after the Calibre 1887, an automatic chronograph movement with an oscillating pinion based on a Heuer invention in 1887, TAG Heuer continues to develop upstream and launches the Calibre CH 80, produced in a new facility, its forth one in Switzerland. In addition, its Haute Horlogerie Workshop produces the Monaco V4, a movement driven by belts,  the Carrera Mikrograph, able to measure and display with a central hand the 1/100th of a second, the Carrera Mikrotimer, accurate to the 1/1000th of a second and the Carrera Mikrogirder, precise to the 5/10’000th of a second. Engineers and watchmakers also challenged movement regulation, replacing the usual escapement by micro-blades or magnets. This exceptional level of watchmaking excellence has earned the company membership in the most exclusive circle of the Swiss watchmaking elite, the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH).