SIDELINE CUT:ALL THE signs are they intend going ahead with the World Cup in South Africa even though the Republic of Ireland will not be there, writes KEITH DUGGAN

Yesterday, as you may have noticed, they held a draw for those 32 countries not mugged in broad stadium floodlight. It was an opulent affair, featuring glamorous movie stars, football legends of yesteryear and, of course, the smiling rotund features of one Joseph Sepp Blatter. Optimists here in Ireland (a recent MRBI poll suggested there are several dozen such souls still in existence) watched on hoping for an 11th-hour reprieve.

We watched the seeding and the drama of the draw and anticipated the juicier matches (Ivory Coast could be the dark horses, they say) all the time privately hoping against hope. Maybe, just at the very end, Sepp would rub his hands together and beam his best Hughie Green smile all the way from Cape Town back here to us, back to this condemned land of floods, of debts, of budding civil war between the private and public sector tribes and of an unhealthy obsession with Thierry Henry.

Sepp would smile in all his mighty beneficence and announce that as a special surprise, the Republic of Ireland would, after all, become the honorary guests of the Fifa nation at the world cup. The 33rd team! The special country! It would be Fifa’s gesture to oppressed football teams everywhere, the moral compensation made good. Then Liam “Chippy” Brady or John Delaney or even “Trap” would enter from stage left and Henry himself would enter from stage right and they would embrace in centre stage.

Henry would offer his hand – the hand of friendship! – and Chippy/John/Trap would point at it and throw his eyes to heaven and in the plush velvet seats, old gods like Pele and the Kaiser would hold their sides with laughter. All of the world would be watching. Special messages of congratulations would be broadcast from such global luminaries as Barack Obama, George Clooney and Jordan. (They would probably scratch Tiger’s contribution).

Sepp would produce a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and delicately dab his eyes. Doves would be released and Nelson Mandela would declare that this moment was a moment for humanity that put his freedom walk in perspective. And just like that, everyone would be friends again.

Would that have been so difficult? Would that really have been impossible? In any event, it has not worked out that way. Next summer’s World Cup will be like one long and bitter taunt to Ireland, reopening the emotions caused by that weird sporting turn in Paris.

Privately, old Sepp must be wondering what to make of this damp island on the edge of Europe. It is unlikely that he ever gave the place much thought before that turbulent night in the Stade. Now, Ireland and the Irish seem set to provide the epitaph for his professional life.

Nothing that Sepp has said about the Henry affair has done anything to detract from Liam Brady’s assertion that the man is a clown. It was bad enough that he made known that Ireland had asked Fifa to be team number 33 and that he laughed at it. By now, it is probably true that sensitivities are pretty sharp in Ireland at the moment when it comes to being laughed at by international figures.

It is probably true that illusions of international prestige have taken a bit of a battering ever since the devastating “Erin Go Broke” headline surfaced in the New York Times back in April. Sepp’s little chuckle cut deep. But since then, Sepp has gone from bad to worse, offering a Fifa compensation which, he quickly added, could not be monetary.

That, he explained would have “others” coming out of the woodwork, thereby implying that there are several if not many other nations who have good reason to feel that they too have been duped in all sorts of clandestine ways. It did not help, either, that Sepp then boasted of the call he made to comfort Henry in his hour of vulnerability, as if he wanted to let everyone know that he had Va Va Voom’s private number and could buzz him whenever he chose. Henry’s sleight of hand had been seen by the world and that seemed to be the main problem, as far as Sepp was concerned. Hence the vague offer of a moral compensation, which may mean that they invite Westlife or the Three Tenors to perform at half-time in the World Cup final (or probably just the third and fourth place play-off).

It has been a strange fortnight. The French, in fairness, behaved impeccably in all of this, diving into a bout of national introspection and talking about the whole thing like the Dreyfus affair had come to life again. It was kind of enjoyable, to be honest, listening to a succession of suave French folks talking on Irish radio about their shame and about the nobility of the Irish team. It almost made the trauma of losing worth it.

Henry is probably beginning to realise that he picked the wrong crowd to try to swindle. The Irish know how to hold a grudge and this won’t be forgotten. Ask the English. The repercussions for Henry may not hit home for months or even years. This time next year, the World Cup will be over and soon forgotten. In a few years’ time, Henry will retire. It is then that he will truly contemplate whether that split-second decision he made in Paris – an intervention that was half instinct and half goal-poacher’s cunning – was worth the blemish it has left on his character as a great footballer.

Henry’s stature is such that he will be elevated to the ranks of Fifa statesman in his retirement. (If Gary Mabbut can make it, Thierry can). His loquaciousness and his handsome appearance guarantees him an ambassadorial role if he so chooses but the chances are that whatever he goes onto achieve in the coming decades, he will never quite outlive that split second of breathtaking slyness.

Anyway, it all adds up to peanuts for Ireland. There will be one hell of a party in South Africa next summer and the Olé Olé Olé brigade will not be there. So much for Bono’s pull with Nelson Mandela! Fat thanks the Dunne Stores’ workers get for the brave fruit boycott of 1984! How quickly they forget.

It could have been special. The 33rd team may have been a crazy suggestion, but it was kind of appealing. There would have been songs, plenty of late nights, three plucky 1-1 draws and elimination by penalty shoot-out (inevitably by France) in the second round. The only real difference would be that plenty of bar owners in Cape Town and Jo’burg would have been many of thousands of rand better off.

Sepp, bless his icy Swiss heart, would have shaken his head in puzzlement and, perhaps, a newly-attained fondness, as this strange little nation of red-faced men at last bowed out of South Africa 2010 bellowing out their defiant and clearly deluded refrain: “You’ll never beat the Irish.”

Nelson, brother, sorry we can’t be there.