Following his side's disappointing English Premier League draw with Southampton yesterday, Chelsea manager José Mourinho came out with one of his more outrageous post-match comments. Namely that his side were the victims of a concerted discriminatory agenda by a consortium of meddling figures.

"There is a campaign against Chelsea. I don't know why there is this campaign and I do not care," he said, with typical bluntness. "The media, commentators, other managers are all doing it [putting pressure on referees]."

This followed a penalty-area incident involving Chelsea's star midfielder Cesc Fàbregas. Instead of receiving a penalty after a heavy tackle, the Spaniard was instead shown a yellow-card for diving by referee Anthony Taylor.

Although the decision did not seem immediately obvious, replays subsequently proved Fàbregas had been tripped and should have received a penalty. The decision to punish him for simulation was both wrong and unfair. But neither is this evidence of a campaign against the Premier League leaders. In recent weeks, there have been two incidents of Chelsea players - defenders Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic - each getting away with what was widely considered to be an outrageous dive. At the same time, Mourinho has also criticised rivals for daring to question the decisions of officials.

Like every other team, Chelsea have received some bad decisions in recent weeks, but they have also benefited from some fortuitous ones. The referees are not perfect, but neither, in most countries at least, are they deliberately biased, and over the course of a season these decisions generally balance out.

José Mourinho was furious after a decision went against his Chelsea team ©Getty Images



But I don't think Mourinho himself seriously believes there is a really a campaign. His outburst was more a clever attempt to get into the minds of referees, opponents and everybody else, to take the pressure off his players and attempt to manipulate future decisions in his favour.

In short, he was continuing a longstanding sporting tradition of playing mind games.

One of the best known exponents of mind games in football management was former Manchester United boss, Sir Alex Ferguson, a man Mourinho has long sought to emulate in the managerial stakes. It was always said that the nagging fear of invoking Sir Alex's wrath helped decisions go in the home side's favour at Old Trafford, while a new concept -"Fergie-time" - emerged due to the manager's relentless pursuit of stoppage time, whenever his team was trailing...

The best example of Sir Alex's mind games came in 1995/96, when after claiming other teams did not try as hard against title rivals Newcastle United as they did against his side, Newcastle boss, and future England manager, Kevin Keegan, finally cracked.

"I'll tell you, honestly, I will love it if we beat them - love it," a furious Keegan proclaimed. But unfortunately for him, Sir Alex had successfully got him rattled and Manchester United went on to win the title despite trailing by 12 points at one stage.

Kevin Keegan lost out in the battle of the mind games to managerial great Sir Alex Ferguson ©Getty Images



Similar games are at work all over the pitch in football, from the fans trying to put off the opposition goalkeeper with relentless catcalls, to players actually diving in order to win a penalty.

On Boxing Day, I watched my local team Forest Green Rovers - a Vanorama Conference side in the fifth tier of English football best known for a ban on all meat products inside the ground introduced for environmental reasons several years ago - lose an entertaining clash 3-2 to mid-table rivals, Kidderminster Harriers.

Having not watched lower league football for a while, I was impressed by the absence of all the histrionics you see on a weekly basis at higher levels. There was no diving, no waving imaginary cards at the referee, and no rolling around on the floor for five minutes only to recover instantly after the slightest whiff of a substitution. Instead, there were plenty of strong, tough players with little skill or footballing intelligence, leading to plenty of mistimed tackles, some calamitous defending and a couple of moments when a full-scale fight seemed to have been narrowly avoided. In short, an entertaining match. 

But, when I thought about it, in a strange way, I concluded that one reason why these players were not at a higher level was because they were lacking that bit of mental nous and ingenuity. Just as they wouldn't have been able to implement a pass with the intricacy of a Chelsea of Manchester United player, they would not have been able to trick the referee into a dive had they wanted to.

And that brings us back to an age-old question: if a player successfully cons the referee into awarded a match-winning penalty in order to effectively do their job and earn their team three points, should they be criticised? Do footballers have a higher-purpose than to win by any means possible?

Similar mind games exist across a myriad of other sports. In cricket, fans around the world have been experiencing the uncomfortable sensation of feeling sympathy for Australia following the tragic death of batsman Philip Hughes after being hit on the head by a bouncer last month.