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I went to the lower level, wiped the scales I had avoided for several years and looked at the display: 99.2kg. Over the past eight years, I had shed nearly 10kg. I had evolved from being a umpire who was heavy and out of shape to being light and conditioned. It had taken time, full of patience, difficult choices and commitments. But it was also the commencement of a change that slowly introduced stress, strain and unease around the tests that the authorities had implemented.

You didn't just need to be a good umpire, it was also about emphasizing eating habits, looking like a elite referee, that the weight and fat percentages were appropriate, otherwise you risked being disciplined, receiving less assignments and finding yourself in the wilderness.

When the refereeing organisation was overhauled during the mid-2010 period, Pierluigi Collina enacted a number of changes. During the opening phase, there was an intense emphasis on physical condition, body mass assessments and adipose tissue, and mandatory vision tests. Eyesight examinations might sound like a expected practice, but it wasn't previously before. At the training programs they not only examined basic things like being able to see fine print at a certain distance, but also more specific tests tailored to elite soccer officials.

Some referees were discovered as color deficient. Another was revealed as blind in one eye and was obliged to retire. At least that's what the gossip suggested, but everyone was unsure – because about the results of the optical assessment, no information was shared in extended assemblies. For me, the optical check was a confidence boost. It indicated competence, thoroughness and a aim to improve.

Concerning tests of weight and fat percentage, however, I largely sensed aversion, frustration and embarrassment. It wasn't the tests that were the difficulty, but the manner of execution.

The opening instance I was obliged to experience the humiliating procedure was in the autumn of 2010 at our annual course. We were in Ljubljana, Slovenia. On the first morning, the officials were split into three groups of about 15. When my group had entered the big, chilly meeting hall where we were to gather, the management urged us to remove our clothes to our underclothes. We glanced around, but nobody responded or attempted to object.

We slowly took off our clothes. The previous night, we had been given specific orders not to eat or drink in the morning but to be as devoid as we could when we were to undergo the test. It was about weighing as little as possible, and having as low a fat percentage as possible. And to appear as a official should according to the model.

There we stood in a lengthy queue, in just our underwear. We were the continent's top officials, elite athletes, role models, adults, parents, confident individuals with strong ethics … but everyone remained mute. We hardly peered at each other, our looks shifted a bit anxiously while we were summoned in pairs. There the boss examined us from completely with an chilling gaze. Mute and watchful. We stepped on the scale singly. I sucked in my abdomen, straightened my back and stopped inhaling as if it would change the outcome. One of the trainers audibly declared: "Eriksson from Sweden, 96.2kg." I perceived how Collina hesitated, observed me and inspected my nearly naked body. I thought to myself that this is not worthy. I'm an grown person and compelled to be here and be evaluated and assessed.

I alighted from the scale and it felt like I was standing in a fog. The same instructor came forward with a type of caliper, a polygraph-like tool that he started to squeeze me with on various areas of the body. The caliper, as the device was called, was cold and I started a little every time it pressed against me.

The instructor squeezed, pulled, applied pressure, quantified, rechecked, mumbled something inaudible, reapplied force and squeezed my dermis and body fat. After each assessment point, he called out the metric reading he could measure.

I had no understanding what the values represented, if it was positive or negative. It lasted approximately a minute. An helper inputted the values into a file, and when all readings had been established, the document rapidly computed my complete adipose level. My reading was announced, for all to hear: "Eriksson, eighteen point seven percent."

Why did I not, or any other person, speak up?

Why couldn't we stand up and express what each person felt: that it was humiliating. If I had raised my voice I would have simultaneously signed my career's death sentence. If I had questioned or opposed the techniques that the chief had implemented then I would not have received any matches, I'm sure about that.

Naturally, I also wanted to become more athletic, weigh less and reach my goal, to become a elite arbiter. It was evident you ought not to be heavy, similarly apparent you should be conditioned – and certainly, maybe the entire referee corps needed a standardization. But it was incorrect to try to get there through a humiliating weigh-in and an strategy where the primary focus was to shed pounds and minimise your adipose level.

Our biannual sessions subsequently adhered to the same routine. Weigh-in, measurement of fat percentage, endurance assessments, laws of the game examinations, analysis of decisions, collaborative exercises and then at the end all would be recapped. On a file, we all got data about our body metrics – arrows pointing if we were going in the correct path (down) or improper course (up).

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