The World Cup has been thrown into doubt just days before kick off after participating nations informed FIFA that every single one of their players had been injured in warm-up games, and were now doubtful for the tournament.

The tournament, scheduled to begin on Friday, has 32 participating nations, all of whom had been expected to fight it out over a month-long festival of football for the game’s ultimate prize.

However, recent high-profile injuries to players such as the Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba, England’s Rio Ferdinand and Holland’s Arjen Robben appear to have set the trend for the tournament.

“We have been looking forward to playing in the World Cup ever since we qualified last year,” said Nigerian manager Otto Rehhagel.

“But the simple truth is that all of our players have been injured either in training or warm-up games.

“I’m not sure how we can put a team together for our first match – our kit man and physio have both said they are up for playing, although, to be fair, even they are carrying knocks.”

It’s been a similar story for the other competing nations, with the Italians surprised at the variety of injuries.

“So far, we’ve had two players out with hamstrings and four with knee ligament problems,” said Marcelo Lippi.

“The rest of the squad have come down with, variously, severe cases of chicken pox, the Black Death and, in one case, Beri-Beri. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Meanwhile, FIFA have confirmed that they are exploring a number of options to allow the tournament to go ahead.

“We are looking at a number of alternative scenarios,” admitted a FIFA spokesperson.

“They include introducing rolling subs and rush goalies to limit the physical toll on the players. We are also looking into the possibility of playing the entire tournament on Sepp Blatter’s XBox and deciding it that way.”