À mort l'arbitre (English translation: Kill the Referee) is a 1984 French thriller film, directed by Jean-Pierre Mocky.

During the game, the referee, Maurice Bruno (whose journalist girlfriend, Martine, is watching from the stands, next to Rico and his gang), awards a penalty, resulting in the jaunes et noirs losing the match, and leading to fighting between the two sets of supporters.

With the defeated and angry fans waiting for Maurice after the game, the team's physical therapist manages to sneak him and Martine out of the stadium in a van.

The couple go to the local studios of FR3 (a fictionalized depiction of the real television channel: France 3) where Maurice takes part in a round table discussing football.

She is then able to flee the house with Maurice, who has managed to stop two of the gang members from gaining entry, and the couple climb to the top of the building to escape the attack.

À mort l'arbitre wasn't as successful as hoped for in French cinemas (box office figures of 359,972[3] - 103,804 of those in Paris[4]) though it did receive largely favorable reviews, with Jacques Morice of Télérama describing Michel Serrault as impeccable and chilling in his role as a belligerent proletarian.

[5] Not until it was seen on French television by 17 million viewers in 1989, as part of a series called Dossiers de l'écran (literally "screen files": each episode consisted of the broadcast of a film dealing with a chosen theme followed by discussions with studio guests on the same theme) and after the Hillsborough and Heysel disasters, did À mort l'arbitre become a success[6] and begin to establish itself as a cult film and one of director Jean-Pierre Mocky's classics.