Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of families, will be left without HD coverage of this year’s World Cup, according to a report published by Sky TV and charity the HD Foundation. In what is known as “HD Hardship”, or “High Definition Poverty”, families around the UK will be forced to watch the tournament on non-high definition 50 inch flatscreens or plasma televisions.

“This is awful news,” said Sky’s Head of HD Sales, Victor Sucebite, pictured above. “The news that millions of families around the UK will be left in HD poverty is worse than any news about children being beaten up or houses being burnt down. It is every family’s right to have High Definition televisions in their home ahead of the World Cup – in exchange for a mere £200 per month plus a HD received and a high-definition ready TV, which is nothing, really, when you think about it. If they don’t have it, imagine the pain and the torment that they will go through during the World Cup.”

“They won’t be able to see Wayne Rooney’s nasal hair”, he mused. “They won’t be able to see the outline of Kaka’s testes, or the laces on Thierry Henry’s boots. They won’t be able to see the full majesty of the South Korean national team’s floppy hair, each and every strand a magnificent zeitgeist, a standing monument to hairdressing and football. How can they go to work the next day and talk about the game on an equal footing? Can you imagine how these viewers must feel, only watching on normal flatscreen televisions? I’m sickened to think that our government is leaving behind all of these people in HD Hardship.”

HD fanatic Eddie Gullible has had HD TV since it came out, and said: “I was one of the first to get a HD telly, and I can’t believe I’ve lived all my life without one. In fact, when I look back at my non-HD years, I feel sick about myself. I feel like I’ve wasted all of those years with low-quality, shit TV. Where would I be if I couldn’t watch the warbling throat mechanisms of X-Factor entrants? Where would I be if I couldn’t see every gobule of spit emitted from a footballer’s mouth? I’d be lost, quite frankly.”

“When I heard that most of the country would be without HD TV for the World Cup, I thought – well, I have to do something.”

Gullible founded “The HD Foundation”, a charity that aims to bring High Definition to the masses. The charity aims to increase knowledge of High Definition television among “poor people” and “the ignorant middle classes”, and will mostly involve a network of pub bores banging on about how HD is the future and that everyone should part with £350 per month for the privilege of high definition.

“It’s the future. Well, that and 3D television, but I haven’t got that yet.”