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I ventured to the lower level, wiped the balance I had avoided for several years and observed the display: 99.2kg. Throughout the previous eight years, I had lost nearly 10kg. I had transformed from being a umpire who was bulky and untrained to being slender and well trained. It had required effort, full of determination, difficult choices and priorities. But it was also the start of a transformation that progressively brought stress, pressure and discomfort around the tests that the leadership had enforced.

You didn't just need to be a skilled referee, it was also about prioritising diet, appearing as a premier umpire, that the weight and adipose levels were right, otherwise you faced being penalized, being allocated fewer games and finding yourself in the cold.

When the refereeing organisation was restructured during the mid-2010 period, the head official enacted a number of changes. During the opening phase, there was an intense emphasis on physique, weigh-ins and fat percentage, and required optical assessments. Vision tests might seem like a expected practice, but it wasn't previously before. At the courses they not only tested basic things like being able to decipher tiny letters at a particular length, but also targeted assessments tailored to professional football referees.

Some officials were discovered as unable to distinguish certain hues. Another turned out to be blind in one eye and was forced to quit. At least that's what the gossip suggested, but nobody was certain – because regarding the outcomes of the eyesight exam, details were withheld in larger groups. For me, the vision test was a confidence boost. It demonstrated expertise, attention to detail and a aim to improve.

Concerning tests of weight and fat percentage, however, I primarily experienced disgust, frustration and embarrassment. It wasn't the examinations that were the issue, but the method of implementation.

The initial occasion I was obliged to experience the degrading process was in the fall of 2010 at our regular session. We were in Ljubljana, Slovenia. On the initial session, the umpires were separated into three groups of about 15. When my team had entered the big, chilly meeting hall where we were to gather, the supervisors urged us to remove our clothes to our intimate apparel. We glanced around, but everyone remained silent or dared to say anything.

We slowly took off our clothes. The prior evening, we had received explicit directions not to eat or drink in the morning but to be as empty as we could when we were to undergo the test. It was about weighing as little as possible, and having as reduced adipose level as possible. And to resemble a umpire should according to the standard.

There we remained in a lengthy queue, in just our intimate apparel. We were Europe's best referees, professional competitors, role models, grown-ups, family providers, confident individuals with high principles … but no one said anything. We barely looked at each other, our eyes darted a bit nervously while we were called forward in pairs. There the chief scrutinized us from head to toe with an ice-cold look. Quiet and attentive. We mounted the weighing machine individually. I contracted my stomach, stood erect and stopped inhaling as if it would have an effect. One of the instructors loudly announced: "Eriksson, Sweden, 96.2 kilos." I sensed how Collina paused, looked at me and inspected my almost bare body. I mused that this is not worthy. I'm an grown person and forced to be here and be examined and judged.

I alighted from the scale and it felt like I was standing in a fog. The identical trainer advanced with a kind of pliers, a polygraph-like tool that he began to pinch me with on assorted regions of the body. The caliper, as the instrument was called, was chilly and I started a little every time it made contact.

The instructor pressed, tugged, pressed, measured, reassessed, spoke unclearly, pressed again and pinched my dermis and adipose tissue. After each assessment point, he announced the number of millimetres he could measure.

I had no understanding what the numbers signified, if it was good or bad. It lasted approximately a minute. An aide recorded the numbers into a document, and when all measurements had been established, the document swiftly determined my complete adipose level. My result was announced, for all to hear: "Eriksson, 18.7%."

Why did I not, or anyone else, voice an opinion?

Why didn't we rise and say what each person felt: that it was degrading. If I had voiced my concerns I would have at the same time sealed my professional demise. If I had challenged or resisted the procedures that the boss had enforced then I wouldn't have got any games, I'm convinced of that.

Certainly, I also wanted to become more athletic, reduce my mass and attain my target, to become a world-class referee. It was clear you ought not to be overweight, similarly apparent you must be conditioned – and certainly, maybe the entire referee corps demanded a professionalisation. But it was improper to try to get there through a embarrassing mass assessment and an agenda where the primary focus was to lose weight and reduce your adipose level.

Our biannual sessions subsequently maintained the same structure. Weigh-in, measurement of fat percentage, endurance assessments, regulation quizzes, analysis of decisions, group work and then at the end everything would be summarised. On a document, we all got data about our physical profile – arrows showing if we were going in the proper course (down) or wrong direction (up).

Adipose measurements were grouped into five categories. An acceptable outcome was if you {belong