...with Paul Sinha one of the team captains

ITV has ordered a new football-based quiz show, hosted by Tim Vine.

Paul Sinha and hockey star Sam Quek will be the team captains on Football Genius, which features two teams of fans competing across a virtual pitch, ‘proving what they do and do not know about the beautiful game'.

The fast turnaround series commission follows a successful pilot last month and ratings of almost 25million for England's World Cup win against Columbia on Saturday.

Vine is a Sutton United fan who recently launched The Football March For Men, which encourages applicants to march 26 miles on July 22 via various London football stadiums to Wembley, in aid of Prostate Cancer UK.

Quek – who was part of Great Britain’s gold-winning team at the 2016 Rio Olympics –  appeared as a guest panellist on ITV's previous sports panel show, Play To The Whistle, featuring Bradley Walsh, Romesh Ranganathan and Seann Walsh. That show was cancelled last year after three series because of disappointing ratings.

She also appeared on a celebrity edition of The Chase, the hit daytime quiz show where Sinha is a 'Chaser'. Like him, she is a fan of Liverpool FC.

Football Genius is made by Hat Trick, the production company behind Have I Got News For You. They also piloted Have I Got Sport For You for the BBC in March, with host Gary Lineker joined by another former England striker, Ian Wright, and Jon Richardson as team captains.

Lineker and Wright were previously team captains on the BBC's long-running sports quiz They Think It's All Over.

Football Genius is being filmed in front of a live audience next month at Sky Studios in West London. Free tickets are now available from Hat Trick.

By Jay Richardson

Published: 5 Jul 2018