KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaica's global sprint king Usain Bolt is likely to live his dream of playing for top English football club Manchester United next year, the Daily Mail newspaper is reporting this morning.

According to the Mail, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson told the club's Inside United magazine that he wants to play the big sprinter in ManU's annual charity game against Real Madrid Legends.

"Usain's a character and a big United fan," the Daily Mail reported Sir Alex as telling Inside United. "But it's interesting he says he'd like to play in a charity game. It could be brilliant, and next year when we play Real Madrid's Legends again there could be opportunities to bring him up and see how he does."

After successfully defending is double sprint titles at the London Olympic Games in August, Bolt had said he would welcome an invitation to try out for Manchester United, his favourite club.

Sir Alex responded by inviting the Jamaican sprinter to ManU's game against Fulham last month, giving him the joy of basking in United's 3-2 victory.

Bolt met members of the team and was presented with a souvenir jersey emblazoned with his name, the title 'champion', and the 9.63 he clocked to win the 100m at the London Games.