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Sports film of the week: The Referee

Remember Martin Hansson? How could you forget?

Title: The Referee

Director: Mattias Low

Tagline: What price do you pay to be a world class soccer referee?

Plot: Who’s the b****rd in the black? On that fateful October night in Paris when Thierry Henry palmed France into the World Cup and Ireland out, it was Martin Hansson.

Rättskiparen (The Referee) is a fly-on-the-wall documentary that follows a year in the life of Sweden’s top professional referee, a man who started out with aspirations of refereeing at the 2010 World Cup but saw it all come crumbling down with one sleight of hand.

With every decision coming under microscopic scrutiny from players, fans and media, who’d be a referee? This documentary and Hansson try to answer that question.

What the critics said: “One for football fans and fans of bald men with flags.” (Simon Crook, Empire Online)

Watch it in full here.

YouTube Credit: Documentary

See our previous Sports films of the week here >

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