I've seen some accounts (fake footballer accounts) being verified via this method:
1. Make sure the footballer isn't on Twitter and so doesn't already have an account
2. Change the profile picture and make it look as legit as possible.
3. Make sure it has a few thousand followers
4. Apply.
The account apparently needs to be older than 6 months old.
I've seen a couple of footballer accounts on Twitter today with the blue tick, and it's clearly not them.
Whether name/username, can then be changed, not sure as it might raise a manual check.