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Micah Richards, Mario Balotelli and Shaun Wright-Phillips share a laugh © PA Photos

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For all the glamour, excitement and financial reward that comes with being a professional athlete, the schedule required can be conducive to a certain amount of boredom - with lots of time spent away from home in identikit hotels with the same collection of characters.

As a result sportsmen are often desperate to find something to relieve the monotony - and practical jokes can often be the way to do it.

After Mario Balotelli returned to Manchester to find his £150,000 Maserati sports car had been filled with a variety of rotting, and thus pungent, fish, we thought it was time to look at ten of the greatest sporting pranks in recent history:

A remarkable transfer
Technically this was an April Fool's Joke, but it's so good that it had to make the cut. This year, on April 1, The Independent ran a story claiming Portugal were set to sell Cristiano Ronaldo to rivals Spain for £160m in order to ease their growing debt crisis. While hardly the most inventive or subtle of Fool's jokes, it did nevertheless achieve its intended aim with a number of more gullible readers.

"Holy hell Spain has one hell of a team," one poster, on Manchester United's official board no less, said. "To be honest if this happens I can see Russia or Qatar just buying other players and that will be the end of international football."

"This is exactly the sort of thing that will improve international football," another added, we like to imagine while nodding sagely. "I welcome this development."

One Berger Senna couldn't beat
Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger were racing drivers and friends, albeit ones with a serious competitive streak. Since they weren't quite operating at the same level on the track (Senna was something of a racing savant, while Berger was just very good), that streak came out in the practical jokes they played on each other - each escalating further than the last.

Senna claimed he had an indestructible carbon fibre briefcase - so Berger threw it out of a helicopter. The Austrian also filled one of his Brazilian friend's hotel rooms with frogs, that took all night to remove, before coolly asking the irate adversary, after he had complained about how long he spent cleaning the place, whether "he found the snake".

Senna retaliated by putting a French cheese in Berger's air-conditioning unit, and filled his shoes with shaving foam - both from the 'classic' chapter of the joke book, but decent efforts nonetheless.

The best of the lot, however, arguably came when Berger substituted the mug shot in Senna's passport for one of a male sex organ. Senna spent 24 hours in an Argentina lock-up when that particular prank was discovered at airport customs. Genius.

Fowler takes one for the team
A UEFA Cup trip to Spartak Vladikavkaz does seem more suited to some boredom-relieving practical jokes than, say, a romantic time with the other half, but this was one prank that got out of hand.

After victory had been secured by Roy Evans' Liverpool side, a worryingly elated Steve Harkness decided the only fair way to celebrate was to relieve himself in Robbie Fowler's shoes. When the No. 9 preceded to put them on and felt an uncomfortable damp, he demanded to know the culprit. The entire team conveniently blamed the absent Ruddock, so the over-sized centre-back's £300 Gucci slip-ons had to take the brunt of the punishment instead.

On the return to Liverpool's airport Ruddock discovered Fowler's handiwork and was none to please - landing a vicious punch on the man otherwise known as 'God' in front of the entire media corp who had travelled with them. Smooth.

Karl's Power
Perhaps the ultimate sporting prankster, and Karl Power isn't even a professional sportsman. What he is however, is an expert at breaking onto the field of play at major events uninvited - a skill he has exploited to maximum effect.

Power has, in no particular order, had his picture taken with the Manchester United squad ahead of a Champions League clash against Bayern Munich, enjoyed a short rally with Tim Henman on Centre Court at Wimbledon, performed a haka for the England rugby team in Rome, come out to bat for England in an Ashes series at Headingley - and even beaten Michael Schumacher to the podium at the British GP.

A cult figure during his heyday after the turn of the millennium, Power didn't always escape free of punishment - receiving a lifetime ban from Old Trafford by Man Utd after making his way onto the pitch to recreate a Diego Forlan goal against Liverpool for the watching crowd.

That's the price you pay for being a self-styled 'modern artist', we guess.

Novak's Djokes
Before he was ranked the best player in the world, Novak Djokovic was known as the undisputed best prankster on the ATP Tour. The pranks weren't necessarily of great complication or intelligence - indeed, they were really just impressions. Djokovic demonstrated an uncanny knack for replication of the techniques of a wide variety of subjects - from Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer through to Pete Sampras, John McEnroe and even Maria Sharapova.

The repertoire helped earn him the nickname 'The Djoker', although Nadal in particular was believed to take exception to the unflattering routine he was the subject of. Sharapova loved it though, so her impression became the one trotted out whenever fans requested a show.

"There was a lot of talk in the past few months about me doing impersonations and I don't like it when people comment in a negative way," Djokovic said back in 2008. "I don't try to offend anybody. It's good that I just did Maria, she doesn't mind."

Cueto's constant calls
An innocuous training ground joke escalated quickly for England winger Mark Cueto, as he suddenly found himself inundated with calls about his beloved Porsche sports car from interested buyers who will to meet his asking price.

Cueto was utterly bemused by the sudden calls, until Sale Sharks team-mate Jason White came clean - revealing he had listed Cueto's car (along with his mobile number) on Auto Trader in a retaliatory measure. The low asking price had only peaked the interest of hundreds of potential buyers. Cueto, as one might expect, was not amused - and didn't sell.

Freddie Flintoff ... teetotaller © Getty Images

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Freddie not so steady
A former Lancashire team-mate of the charismatic all-rounder conceded that Andrew Flintoff's "boredom threshold is extremely low", manifesting itself in a list of weird and wonderful practical jokes.

Perhaps the best of his county days was in managing to get a pig's head - hardly The Godfather, but not far away - into the locker of team-mate Glenn 'the Ginger Pig' Chapple, who understandably wasn't best pleased (even if it does show admirable cunning ... or maybe just very lax security).

But Flintoff will perhaps always be known for the prank gone wrong - his drunken decision to borrow a pedalo for a late night sojourn while on tour with the national team in the West Indies. It came to make up part of the legend of the man never known to be afraid of some 'liquid refreshment'.

Ben Crane's character
Golfers hardly have the reputation as the most interesting and adventurous of sportsman, so it would surprise few to know that pranks on the European and PGA Tours are hardly a frequent occurence. But Ben Crane emerged last year as a character with some hilariously wacky YouTube videos - a turn-up made even more delicious for the fact the American was known as one of the slowest and most deliberate (read: bland) players on tour.

Because of that his video explaining why he takes so much time has an added layer of humour, although perhaps his workout guide is the funnier. The popularity of all his videos led to the release of a 'Golf Boys' music video (and behind-the-scenes documentaries) though, so it can't be said that Crane's exhibitionism has been a completely positive thing.

Healey sends Greenwood postal
A classic of the genre, in all honesty - although not as 'crude' as you might expect of a rugby player. At a time when Will Greenwood and Austin Healey lived together, the pair were eagerly awaiting correspondence through the post telling them whether or not they had been selected for the forthcoming Lions tour.

Sure enough, one day two identical envelopes arrived through the letterbox. Healey got there first, however, and hid Greenwood's before the centre came down for breakfast. When Greenwood emerged, fullback Healey took great glee in celebrating his call-up and waving the letter in Greenwood's face - not even pausing to offer his housemate any commiserations for missing out.

"There were rumours that I may have made the tour so I was obviously hugely disappointed," Greenwood recalled. "Then he asked me to give him a lift to Welford Road, so I drove Austin into the car park and there was Graham Simmons from Sky and he said 'Well done, Will'. I nearly smacked him - I thought he was being a sarcastic little so-and-so.

"Then Austin pulls something out of his top pocket and says 'I think you are looking for this'."

The future Strictly Come Dancing star proceeded to laugh hysterically, while Greenwood didn't know whether to celebrate his success or castrate his room-mate.

"Those are the perils and dangers of living with A Healey," he noted. Wise words.

Balotelli best bits
The man who has suffered one prank but executed a million more - you could do a top ten solely on the Italian's best practical jokes and you'd still have to leave off a couple of crackers.

From throwing darts out of a first floor window at youth team players to taking away Edin Dzeko's legs while celebrating a huge FA Cup victory on live television (not to mention gleefully picking up thousands in parking fines), the Italian has never been afraid of having a laugh at someone else's expense.

But perhaps it was in Italy that the former Inter Milan star arguably did his greatest work, with two incidents in particular springing to mind. Firstly, there was the time Balotelli was cautioned by police for firing a toy pistol in the middle of Milan's Piazza della Repubblica during the summer. Then there was the time he 'accidentally' drove into a women's prison. Apparently he and his friends saw it was a prison, and saw that the gate was not locked, so thought they would wander in.

They were soon accosted by security, who demanded they leave. According to reports, Balotelli was 'especially curious as it was a women's prison'. Amazing.

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