Movie producer wants a real footballer with enough skill to make him more believable 

A hunt is under way for a young footballer to play United hero George Best in a new film about his life.

The makers of the biopic are to scour football academies in a bid to find someone skillful enough to be believable as the Northern Irishman.

Best, who played more than 350 times for the Reds, winning the league twice and the European Cup in 1968, is regarded as one of the best players ever to play the game.

Producer Stephen Evans is said to want a footballer who can be taught to act, rather than an actor posing as a footballer.

The recruitment process is to be similar to one he used when making Seve, a film about Spanish golfer Seve Ballesteros.

“What we want is a good-looking, spindly, cheeky-chappy” he told the Sunday Times.

“The only man who could play Best in adulthood - and match his resolute intensity wit and charisma of George himself.

“Any other actor would fall woefully short, above all, during any footballing sequences.”

Evans has won a total of 11 Oscars for his work which includes Henry V and The Madness of King George.

The film will focus on Best’s move to Manchester from Belfast aged just 15 and his relationship with landlady Mary Fullaway.

It also cover his rise to fame and his subsequent battle with alcoholism before his death in 2005 aged 59 with filming expected to get under way this summer.