Soccer player Maradona wooed for 'playing'

June 6, 2002

HOLLYWOOD (Zap2it.com) - With World Cup fever affecting most of the globe, two British film companies are hoping to woo former soccer great Diego Maradona to appear in one of their movies.

U.K.-based Giant Films and Fat Melon Films are casting "Playing for the Enemy," a comedy about a young citizen of the Falkland Islands who moves to Argentina in the hopes of becoming a professional soccer player. The film will be made in collaboration with Argentinean production company Patagonik ("Son of the Bride"), whose latest film, "Nine Queens," is currently a box office hit in South America.

"The history between England and Argentina, both on the battlefield and the football pitch, provides a rich dramatic backdrop to the story," Patagonik producer Octavio Nadal tells Variety. "This is a feel-good movie about the peace process between our two nations."

Britain and Argentina went to war in 1982 over the Falkland Islands, which are located in the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina.

The filmmakers are hoping to turn the movie into another "Billy Elliot," and are now looking for the perfect young star to headline the project.

Maradona, considered Argentina's greatest and most troubled soccer player, has not yet said whether or not he play a cameo role in the film.

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