History Main / EasilyDistractedReferee

* ''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]], [[GenreSavvy so can she]], and she ends up [[HoistByHisOwnPetard using this trope against them]].

* ''{{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).

* Played for laughs in ''RenAndStimpy'''s wrestling match versus the Lout Brothers in "Mad Dog Hoek."

''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. Often considered to ''not'' be TruthInTelevision: most sports fans complain about the refs blowing the whistle ''too much'' instead of too little, slowing down the game in the process.

''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.

** In the video game adaptation, it is much worse, since the Ref is actually a little goblin that stands on the field, and can miss fouls done by Minotaurs, Ogres, or even ''TREES'' that he is looking directly at.
*** If you were a goblin, would YOU want to interrupt the play for a foul done by someone eight times your size who hurts people for a living?

* 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.
* It appears in the first BringItOn movie, when a cheerleader deliberately distracts the referee by bending over in her extremely short skirt.

It's a well-known fact that ProfessionalWrestling referees have the shortest attention spans of any creature in the known multiverse (along with [[GlassJawReferee being allergic to contact]]). They can be distracted by ''anything''; from an argumentative manager, to [[DistractedByTheSexy a pretty girl dancing at ringside]], to a turnbuckle pad that appears to be loose, to a [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny particularly shiny object]]. Wrestling villains often take advantage of the ref's attention deficit, causing distractions and using the opportunity to use illegal tactics (chokes, eye gouges, weapons, etc.) or, in a {{tag team}} match, to prevent the RickyMorton from tagging out to his partner. The rule is: if the ref didn't see it, it didn't happen, and it's NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught.

* Of course the trope naming sport does have its fair share of {{subver|ted trope}}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.

It's a well-known fact that ProfessionalWrestling referees have the shortest attention spans of any creature in the known multiverse (along with [[GlassJawReferee being allergic to contact]]). They can be distracted by ''anything''; from an argumentative manager, to [[DistractedByTheSexy a pretty girl dancing at ringside]], to a turnbuckle pad that appears to be loose, to a [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny particularly shiny object]]. Wrestling villains often take advantage of the ref's attention deficit, causing distractions and using the opportunity to use illegal tactics (chokes, eye gouges, weapons, etc.) or, in a tag-team match, to prevent the RickyMorton from tagging out to his partner. The rule is: if the ref didn't see it, it didn't happen, and it's NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught.

[[quoteright:250:[[Manga/OnePiece http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Easily_Distracted_Referee_1851.png]]]]

* ''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.

* 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. In actual ''KBB'' shows, Jingi plays the trope straight, though.

* ''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 margine 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.

** One of the later games in the anime version of the Davy Back arc inverts this, with a team of attentive refs impartially enforcing all of the "Hit and Dead Ball" game's hundreds of rules. This is still to the villain team's advantage, because Luffy and his team ''don't know'' the rules of the game and end up committing penalty after penalty.

''Can'' be averted or subverted, as Shuichi Nishinaga of Pro Wrestling NOAH 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.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]

* ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'' referees 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.
** In the video game adaption, it is much worse, since the Ref is actually a little goblin that stands on the field, and can miss fouls done by Minotaurs, Ogres, or even ''TREES'' that he is looking directly at.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'' referees 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.
** In the video game adaption, it is much worse, since the Ref is actually a little goblin that stands on the field, and can miss fouls done by Minotaurs, Ogres, or even ''TREES'' that he is looking directly at.