What next for the FAI...An X-Factor sing-off?

And so the Football Association of Ireland's request to become the 33rd team at the 2010 World Cup was thrown out yesterday.

It was an idea so preposterous that even blundering Fifa president Sepp Blatter, the man who insisted the women's game would lend it self to a wider audience were the participants to wear skimpier kits, gave it less than a moments thought.

Now any sane governing body would see Blatter's rejection as the final rebuttal, time to burn the folder marked 'World Cup Appeal' and concentrate on more pressing matters like 'how he fuck does Paul McShane still get in our side? Surely we should be developing better players'.

But the conduct of the FAI throughout this whole tedious affair - never have the words toys, pram, throwing, their, out and of, been so appropriate - suggests this is aint the end of the road as far as they're concerned.

Here follows the next possible installment in Ireland's desperate bid to be involved next summer.

X-Factor sing-off - Jedward v Celine Dion:
Now I'm not entirely sure, nor do I care, which part of Ireland those two twin twerps hail from, but that never seemed to matter when Jack Charlton was picking his team (see Cascarino Tony, Townsend Andy, Houghton Ray et al). And if we're playing by those rules, Celine Dion, by virtue of her French ancestry, will be singing from the blue corner.

Outcome: Jedward, belting out a rap version of Nessun dorma, wow the X-Factor live audience and have Louis Walsh barking and clapping like a baby seal, screaming "vote for my boys". Blatter scribbles a note and passes it to Walsh. It reads: "Shut up you weird fuck, this is not how we rig a vote in my organisation."

Jedward's effort wins votes among those who fell in love with football during Italia 90, but Dion's rendition of I Will Always Love You, played out to a backdrop of emotive images of handball villain Thierry Henry tug at the heartstrings of a global audience.

Verdict: After Walsh and Cheryl Cole - she doesn't like Henry because he was paid more money at Arsenal than her husband - vote for Jedward, it's up to Simon Cowell and Danni 'this is supposed to be a singing contest' Minogue to take the competition to Deadlock.

Blatter, standing in for metatarsal victim Dermot O'Leary, then reveals the result of the public vote, and declares that France are to keep their place in South Africa thanks to Dion's efforts.

The FAI instantly submit World Cup Appeal Plan C, a Master Chef cook-off between Ready Steady Cook veteran Paul Rankin and housewives' favourite Jean-Christophe Novelli.