It’s not yet out in the UK, but the trailer for this Tim Roth and Gérard Depardieu-starring official Fifa movie does not bode well

Some topical films are ripped from the headlines. They are admired for their tough contemporary news sense and great timing. None of this applies to what could be the most intensely embarrassing film imaginable – United Passions, a drama about the history of Fifa and those fascinating flawed heroes in charge. It stars Tim Roth as the saturnine and rather handsome Sepp Blatter and plays like the most self-pitying opening ceremony in World Cup history with a huge amount of special pleading.

United Passions was made last year in (relatively) easier times, with the co-operation of Fifa itself; it still awaits a UK release. All we have seen is the trailer, which has a car-crash fascination – like a weird mixture of Chariots of Fire and The Godfather. It appears uneasily to acknowledge all the unfortunate financial difficulty and confusion, and the intense loneliness and stress of being a capo in the Fifa family, while implying that a little bit of financial fancy footwork was understandable at the beginning when the thing had to be built from scratch and no one could have handled the subsequent tsunami of corporate cash. This was naturally the inevitable outcome of football’s overwhelming global popularity, which Fifa did so much to nurture.

We start with lots of quaint chaps in wing collars and boaters spotting football’s importance in the pre–historic, pre–second world war era. Some idealistic Frenchmen invent Fifa over the tea table and then a nasty sneering Brit from perfidious Albion is shown mocking them: “Your so–called federation doesn’t even exist yet!”

Portly Gérard Depardieu plays Fifa’s third and longest–serving president, Jules Rimet – who gave his name to the original trophy: the elegant, winged figure of Greek goddess Nike (a sponsorship opportunity surely) immortalised in the Baddiel/Skinner/Lightning Seeds pop single Three Lions: “Jules Rimet’s still gleaming …”

Intriguingly, the trailer implies that the site of the very first World Cup in Uruguay was a stitch–up. Rimet is, in time, replaced as Fifa president by João Havelange played on what looks like professional autopilot by Sam Neill. And oh, the impatience with which Havelange is shown pounding the boardroom table and shouting: “Our accounts are disastrous!” Is the film implying that the mess is accidental?

Eyes on the prize ... Gérard Depardieu as Fifa’s longest-serving president, Jules Rimet.

Then comes the high point of the trailer, the toe-curler. Havelange gives way to Fifa’s dynamic young thruster, Sepp: “Blatter is apparently good at finding money!” Yikes. Yowch. You can say that again. And Blatter is shown cutting a deal with Adidas at a roadside service station.

“I want you to make our ball the star of the next World Cup …” says Mr Adidas, “… if that ball becomes a star, Fifa and Adidas will sign the biggest deal the world has ever seen!”

Then things get very tough for poor Sepp, who at one point is shown being assured by an attractive young woman: “You’ve been betrayed … You could go to prison …” Poor Sepp. Betrayed. Not his fault. Some shots of Brazil – where the beautiful game is practised with supreme passion – include a vision of the Christ the Redeemer statue. Could this be an image of Sepp, that buccaneering entrepreneur and visionary who became the sacrificial victim of others’ misdeeds?

Tim Roth’s performance looks oddly wan, languid and disengaged – rather like his performance as Prince Rainier in the recent, horrendous biopic Grace Of Monaco. But despite the dire look of this trailer, he could bring unexpected passion and depth to the role of Sepp – the great misunderstood tragic antihero of the 21st century. We shall see when the film comes out in the UK.