Football fanatics will be now be able to buy chocolate smarties in their own teams colours.

York-based Nestl-Rowntree is launching Soccer Special Smarties, containing colours or pairs of colours representing every team in the FA Premier League.

The promotion will see football words such as tackle, pass and shoot, embossed on the caps, to replace letters of the alphabet.

Tubes will also contain spherical smarties printed to look like footballs.

Smartie lovers have no way of knowing which team's colours they will find inside a tube so Leeds United fans may find the red and white of Manchester United very hard to swallow.

Nestl Spokesman, Paul Kirkwood said: "The surprise element will make the new product all the more exciting to buy.

"This is the most complex type of Smarties we've ever produced because of the number of colours involved and hazard of keeping apart different colours and pairs of colours.

"The new line has been introduced to keep the Smarties novel and contemporary, especially to soccer-mad six to eight-year olds. We're also expecting lots of adults to buy them as a novelty to show their fellow fans."

The soccer Smarties will be in the shops for about three months from Monday and standard smarties will still be available to buy.

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