History Main / EasilyDistractedReferee

* Comically played up in sports movie spoof ''The Comebacks'', where the ref in the championship game has been paid off by the other team. Naturally, he never seems to catch the bad guys' ridiculously dirty, violent play. At one point he innocently whistles while wearing sunglasses and holding a white cane like a blind man.

* Once per half, any team in ''VideoGame/MutantFootballLeague'' can bribe the ref. This works two ways: he'll ignore any major penalties your team commits (there aren't very many: pass interference, [[UnnecessaryRoughness unnecessary manslaughter]], and/or [[BloodSport killing the QB before the snap]]), and he'll also call bogus penalties on your opponents if they score, make a big play, or get a turnover. If the ref has been bribed against you, you can either bribe him to your side or kill him.

* ''Discworld/UnseenAcademicals'' sees the game of ''foot-the-ball'' assuming great importance in Ankh-Morpork. In a grudge match attended by tens of thousands of people, a team of wizards takes on a representative City team - composed of the hardest cloggers, foulers and dirty players in the game. It does not help that the referee is a wheezing thirty stone (350 pound) wizard who is un-used to too much physical exertion, and the forces of evil manage to pull many dirty tricks on the fly (from poisoning the wizards' goalie to breaking the legs of their star player).

* On WWC's 6-15-2019 show Xic Xavant tagged into to face Mighty Ursus or El Gran Armando four times. The referee missed three tags to Chicano and forced Xavant out while just assuming Armand and Ursus tagged while he wasn't looking.

''Can'' be averted or subverted, as Shuichi Nishinaga of Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH once proved in a championship match: when the Heel's attempt to fake the Face champion cheating, his applying of fake blood was noticed by the guy reading pre-match officialese who pointed it out and the referee actually rubbed it away as a result.

* Once per half, any team in ''VideoGame/MutantFootballLeague'' can bribe the ref. This works two ways: he'll ignore pass interference, unnecessary roughness, and/or [[UnnecessaryRoughness killing the QB before the snap]] from your team, and he'll also call bogus penalties on your opponents if they score, make a big play, or get a turnover. If the ref has been bribed against you, you can either bribe him to your side or kill him.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Appears with aplomb in the Groggy Ring, a soccer/wrestling match with weapons banned. The referee is a crew member from the enemy team. Guess what happens? Eventually, Nami realizes that, if the bad guys can [[InvokedTrope invoke this trope]], so can she, and she ends up [[HoistByHisOwnPetard using this trope against them]].

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]

[[quoteright:250:[[Manga/OnePiece https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eac2adb27e6f339db3e92ff44f029f67.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:250:Game? What game?]]

* In many Mexican promotions there are rudo (Main/{{Heel}}) refs who are easily bribed into favoring the heel. Rudo refs are masters at "distracting" themselves in unconvincing ways -- Tirantes Jr. has at times pretended to ''answer a cell phone call'' during a match to avoid counting a baby{{face}}'s pin attempt.

[[folder:Pro wrestling]]

* In many Mexican promotions there are rudo (Main/{{Heel}} refs who are easily bribed into favoring the heel. Rudo refs are masters at "distracting" themselves in unconvincing ways -- Tirantes Jr. has at times pretended to ''answer a cell phone call'' during a match to avoid counting a baby{{face}}'s pin attempt.

* In many Mexican promotions there are rudo ({{heel]]) refs who are easily bribed into favoring the heel. Rudo refs are masters at "distracting" themselves in unconvincing ways -- Tirantes Jr. has at times pretended to ''answer a cell phone call'' during a match to avoid counting a baby{{face}}'s pin attempt.

* In many Mexican promotions there are rudo (heel) refs who are easily bribed into favoring the heel. Rudo refs are masters at "distracting" themselves in unconvincing ways -- Tirantes Jr. has at times pretended to ''answer a cell phone call'' during a match to avoid counting a babyface's pin attempt.
* As the runaway child of the Toryumon promotion that originated in Mexico, Wrestling/DragonGate "Tag Teams" usually bear a closer resemblance to Mexican style parejas where tags are not strictly necessary. For the special "[[GimmickMatches Gate Of Heaven]]", where tags ''are'' necessary, two referees will be deployed in an attempt to {{def|iedtrope}}y this trope and ensure teams don't cheat.
* At the 2016 ''[[Wrestling/RingOfHonor Best in the World]]'' Kamaitachi allowed [[Wrestling/ChristopherDaniels The]] [[Wrestling/FrankieKazarian Addiction]] to pay tribute to Aguayo Jr by picking a fight with Jay White during their match with The Motor City Machine Guns, causing enough of a distraction to allow the Addiction to cheat and retain their tag team title belts.

->''It takes a special type of person to be a professional-wrestling referee, the type of person who, if he had been present when the Hindenburg was being consumed by a giant ball of flame, would have been looking, with intense interest, at the ground.''

* Played with in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'' when the referee at the Quidditch World Cup is distracted (intentionally) by the Bulgarian National Team's mascots: a group of veela (sexy land-sirens who can hypnotize men by dancing). When brought to his senses by a literal kick to the shin, he threatens of eject the ''mascots'' from the game. The match commentator remarks how that has never happened before.

* As the runaway child of the Toryumon promotion that originated in Mexico, Wrestling/DragonGate "TagTeam" usually bare a closer resemblance to Mexican style parejas where tags are not strictly necessary. For the special "[[GimmickMatches Gate Of Heaven]]", where tags ''are'' necessary, two referees will be deployed in an attempt to {{def|iedtrope}}y this trope and ensure teams don't cheat.
* At the 2016 ''[[Wrestling/RingOfHonor Best in the World]]'' Kamaitachi allowed [[Wrestling/ChristopherDaniels The]] [[Wrestling/FrankieKazarian Addiction]] to pay tribute to Aguayo Jr by picking a fight with Jay White during their match with The Motor City Machined Guns, causing enough of a distraction to allow the Addiction to cheat and retain their tag team title belts.

!!Examples

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Disney/BedknobsAndBroomsticks'', Professor Browne volunteers to ref the soccer game on the Island of Naboombu, but becomes easily distracted because many animals, including [[KingOfBeasts the lion]] (perhaps ''especially'' the lion), are playing unfairly. One of the boys even yells out "Ref, are you blind?" and gets reprimanded by Miss Price with "Don't forget who the referee is!" [[note]]To Prof. Browne's credit, he was ''trying'' to signal fouls and other violations, but the ''players'' were ignoring ''him''.[[/note]]

[[folder:Pinball]]

[[folder: Professional wrestling]]

* At the 2016 ''[[Wrestling/RingOfHonor Best In The World]]'' Kamaitachi allowed [[Wrestling/ChristopherDaniels The]] [[Wrestling/FrankieKazarian Addiction]] to pay tribute to Aguayo Jr by picking a fight with Jay White during their match with The Motor City Machined Guns, causing enough of a distraction to allow the Addiction to cheat and retain their tag team title belts.

[[folder:Tabletop games]]
* ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'' referees are notoriously corrupt and/or kowtowed by the players or the fans and will only catch a player engaging in illegal behaviour (i.e. KickThemWhileTheyAreDown) one in six times, and will only notice the use of unsanctioned foreign objects (like chainsaws, ''bombs'', or '''steamrollers''') at the end of a drive no matter how often (or how successfully) you've been using them during that drive. Throwing in a [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney nice bribe]] adds an additional level of safety as the ref has a five out of six chance of ignoring any successful spotting of anything illegal.

* ''Dreadball'' technically has two Refs - one on the pitch and one monitoring from a camera drone floating above the pitch known as the "Eye In The Sky". It somewhat averts this trope by having actual Ref Check rolls being more about whether the foul is actually spotted among the confusion or not (they're not going to consult a recording due to the game being too fast to stop for that). Part of it could also be because the Co-Prosperity Sphere is capitalist to the extreme and the fans love it when a player puts the boot in. Players can actively distract the on-the-pitch Ref with an action, but unless they succeed by a considerable margin then there's a chance that player will be sent off. How this works when the Ref model in the base set is depicted as a robot with literal eyes in the back of her head is never directly explained.

--> [[CatchPhrase Darn the luck! Darn!]]

* A heroes-villains baseball game is briefly featured in one ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'' episode; there's some dispute among the players about whether Freakazoid tagged Arms Akimbo before he got on base, but umpire the Huntsman can't make a call because he was getting some water and didn't see the play.

* Subverted in the ''Wrestling/KaijuBigBattel'' "manga"; referee Jingi calls Dr. Cube about a recent title fight and reveals that he reviewed the tape, saw that Cube clearly cheated when he wasn't looking, and that the match has been declared a draw with the title now vacant. In actual ''KBB'' shows, Jingi plays the trope straight, though.

* In ''Disney/BedknobsAndBroomsticks'', Professor Browne volunteers to ref the soccer game on the Island of Naboombu, but becomes easily distracted because many animals, including [[KingOfBeasts the lion]] (perhaps ''especially'' the lion), are playing unfairly. One of the boys even yells out "Ref, are you blind?" and gets reprimanded by Miss Price with "Don't forget who the referee is!"

-->-- '''DaveBarry''', "Wrestling's First Rule: Cover Your 'Masculine Region'"

Referees also tend to get distracted just as the {{face}} gets a pin on the {{heel}}, or just as the heel submits to the face's hold. They also get distracted by the face's tag team partner, just long enough for the heel tag team to execute some dreadful manuever or drag the hapless face back to their corner.

* Of course the trope naming sport does have its fair share of {{subver|tedTrope}}sions, aversions and many other instances where the trope was played with. Take [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Stevie Wonderful]], who is not easily distracted, but because he's blind he doesn't need to be.

* Comically played up in sports movie spoof ''Film/TheComebacks'', where the ref in the championship game has been paid off by the other team. Naturally, he never seems to catch the bad guys' ridiculously dirty, violent play. At one point he innocently whistles while wearing sunglasses and holding a white cane like a blind man.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Dreadball}}'' technically has two Refs - one on the pitch and one monitoring from a camera drone floating above the pitch known as the "Eye In The Sky". It somewhat averts this trope by having actual Ref Check rolls being more about whether the foul is actually spotted among the confusion or not (they're not going to consult a recording due to the game being too fast to stop for that). Part of it could also be because the Co-Prosperity Sphere is capitalist to the extreme and the fans love it when a player puts the boot in. Players can actively distract the on-the-pitch Ref with an action, but unless they succeed by a considerable margin then there's a chance that player will be sent off. How this works when the Ref model in the base set is depicted as a robot with literal eyes in the back of her head is never directly explained.