Africa Is a Country

Who will play George Weah?

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Who will play George Weah?

By
Sean Jacobs

The blog Liberia and Friends reports the American actor/director Dermot Mulroney will develop and probably direct a biopic on the life of Liberian football legend George Weah. What does Mulroney know about football? Turns out he starred in a film about a young soccer player, “Gracie.” As for African topics, the news agency Reuters reports that he produced a film about Sudanese refugees.

Weah, the 1995 FIFA World Player of the Year and one of the few players with a legitimate claim to be Africa’s best ever footballer–he probably is–never played in the World Cup. That Liberia was never a football power has a lot to do with. Liberia almost qualified for the 2002 World Cup once, but that’s the closest they came. Weah’s best football was played with Paris Saint Germain and AC Milan in European club football.

George Weah playing for AC Milan in 1995. Image Credit Allsport via Wikimedia Commons.

I hope the filmmakers do justice to the of special moments in Weah’s career, like the end-to-end goal in this video that he scored in Italy for AC Milan or this goal for PSG vs Bayern Munich in 1994.

The other big question is: Who will play George Weah? Idris Elba? He can play the adult, post-football Weah maybe. He’s definitely played an African president before.

Weah is now a politician and will probably run for president again in next year’s elections in Liberia. Oh, and he’s tried his hand at writing op-eds.

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