Eye Catching Photo Edit

I have a requirement to create an amazing eye catching portrait version of the image attached to this project. The attached image contains a footballer (to the right) which I would like edited to create an amazing looking splash screen to an iPhone application. The final size would be portrait at 640x960. I have a reasonably small budget for this project but a talented editor would no doubt receive more work in due course. I want the splash screen to blow users away. Happy for you to extract the football from the background and create an image which almost pops out of the screen. Your ideas or suggestions would be delightfully received. If a background colour is used I would prefer a darker red. I look forward to receiving your ideas. Steven