FIFA backs football team trilogy

The Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal is in talks to play the leading role in Goal! A planned trilogy of films about a young footballer’s rise to stardom.

The film has the backing of FIFA, the governing body of world football, which has agreed to assign all of its licensing and trademark rights to the production, as well as linking the producers with the 15 sponsors of the 2006 World Cup, which will be the setting for the final film in the trilogy.

FIFA will also promote the project as part of its 100th anniversary celebrations next year, give technical advice on the football sequences and help to line up cameos by past and present players, one of the producers, Mike Jefferies, told Daily Variety.

The first film, to be shot next year, will follow the young footballer as he travels from his home in Los Angeles to join a major English club – either Newcastle or Chelsea. For the second film the rising star will be transferred either to Real Madrid or an unspecified Italian club. In the third film he will play in the World Cup.

Bernal, who starred in the Mexican hits Y Tu Mama Tambien and Amores Perros, is currently filming in Spain and is due to attend a Real Madrid home game this weekend.

“I would be excited to think we would get somebody as talented and brilliant as Gael, not only as an actor but also as a soccer player,” Jeffries told the newspaper.

“This is not just gong to be a formulaic sports movie, a traditional summer blockbuster action movie that happens to be set in the world of soccer. We’re aiming to make a film that will touch people and be critically acclaimed.”