What does it take to be a world class football referee? Top football referee Martin Hansson had a successful journey towards his vision in life, the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Then one dark night in Paris on November 18th, 2009, all hell broke loose…

Hansson’s story has meaning beyond football. The Referee strangely echoes Errol Morris’s portrait of Robert McNamara in The Fog of War.

This film is a humane portrait of what it means to be a referee as a way of engaging in a more calm set of reflections about the meaning of justice, law, and human error in football and beyond.