Diego Maradona junior, the son of Argentina's 1986 World Cup winner, begun a two-day trial with Scottish premier league club Dunfermline Athletic on Thursday.

Dunfermline opened up their East End Park ground to enable the public to watch the 17-year-old forward train with the club's first team squad.

Maradona is in the youth ranks of Italian second division club Napoli, the team his father helped win their only Serie A titles in 1987 and 1990, as well as the 1989 UEFA Cup.

"There is always a risk when you bring in a foreign player but if he is good enough, we will take it forward," Dunfermline's director of football Jim Leishman told reporters.

Dunfermline, who will play in the UEFA Cup after finishing fourth in the SPL and Scottish Cup runners-up last season, first declared an interest in signing Maradona Junior last year.

Media reports had suggested that bigger clubs were also interested in signing the player, including Portugal's Benfica and England's Blackburn Rovers.

But Maradona's mother Cristiana Sinagra told local newspapers in Scotland that she felt her son had a better chance of first-team football at Dunfermline.

Maradona senior, 43, is regarded as one of the finest players in soccer history. Four years ago he was voted "player of the century" by fans on FIFA's official web site.

He led Argentina to World Cup victory in 1986, scoring one of the best goals in the tournament's history in the quarter-final against England.

He has spent much of the past four years undergoing drugs rehabilitation treatment, and was admitted to hospital in April after suffering heart problems.