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I went to the cellar, cleaned the balance I had evaded for several years and looked at the readout: 99.2kg. During the last eight years, I had shed nearly 10kg. I had evolved from being a official who was overweight and out of shape to being light and conditioned. It had required effort, full of persistence, tough decisions and focus. But it was also the commencement of a change that slowly introduced pressure, pressure and unease around the examinations that the top management had enforced.

You didn't just need to be a skilled referee, it was also about focusing on nutrition, looking like a premier official, that the body mass and body fat were appropriate, otherwise you risked being penalized, being allocated fewer games and finding yourself in the sidelines.

When the regulatory group was restructured during the 2010 summer season, Pierluigi Collina brought in a number of changes. During the first year, there was an extreme focus on physical condition, body mass assessments and adipose tissue, and compulsory eyesight exams. Vision tests might appear as a standard practice, but it hadn't been before. At the sessions they not only tested fundamental aspects like being able to see fine print at a certain distance, but also specialized examinations adapted for elite soccer officials.

Some referees were identified as unable to distinguish certain hues. Another turned out to be blind in one eye and was obliged to retire. At least that's what the rumours claimed, but everyone was unsure – because concerning the results of the eyesight exam, no information was shared in big gatherings. For me, the optical check was a confidence boost. It indicated competence, meticulousness and a aim to improve.

When it came to body mass examinations and adipose measurement, however, I largely sensed disgust, frustration and humiliation. It wasn't the examinations that were the difficulty, but the manner of execution.

The opening instance I was obliged to experience the degrading process was in the fall of 2010 at our yearly training. We were in a European city. On the first morning, the umpires were separated into three teams of about 15. When my group had stepped into the large, cold conference room where we were to assemble, the supervisors instructed us to undress to our underclothes. We exchanged glances, but nobody responded or attempted to object.

We slowly took off our garments. The previous night, 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 take the assessment. It was about weighing as little as possible, and having as low a fat percentage as possible. And to resemble a official should according to the paradigm.

There we were positioned in a extended line, in just our underwear. We were the continent's top officials, professional competitors, inspirations, mature individuals, parents, confident individuals with strong ethics … but nobody spoke. We scarcely glanced at each other, our gazes flickered a bit anxiously while we were invited two by two. There Collina observed us from top to bottom with an frigid stare. Mute and attentive. We mounted the scale one by one. I pulled in my stomach, stood erect and ceased breathing as if it would make any difference. One of the coaches clearly stated: "Eriksson, Sweden, 96.2 kilos." I felt how the boss paused, looked at me and surveyed my partially unclothed body. I thought to myself that this lacks respect. I'm an mature individual and forced to remain here and be evaluated and critiqued.

I stepped off the balance and it seemed like I was in a daze. The equivalent coach approached with a sort of clamp, a polygraph-like tool that he started to squeeze me with on assorted regions of the body. The caliper, as the tool was called, was chilly and I flinched a little every time it made contact.

The trainer squeezed, pulled, forced, quantified, measured again, uttered indistinct words, reapplied force and pinched my dermis and fatty deposits. After each assessment point, he announced the metric reading he could gauge.

I had no idea what the values represented, if it was favorable or unfavorable. It required about a minute. An helper entered the values into a document, and when all four values had been determined, the record quickly calculated my total fat percentage. My reading was proclaimed, for all to hear: "Eriksson, eighteen point seven percent."

Why didn't I, or anyone else, voice an opinion?

What stopped us from get to our feet and state what each person felt: that it was degrading. If I had voiced my concerns I would have concurrently signed my end of my officiating path. If I had questioned or opposed the methods that the chief had enforced then I would have been denied any fixtures, I'm convinced of that.

Of course, I also aimed to become more athletic, reduce my mass and achieve my objective, to become a elite arbiter. It was clear you shouldn't be overweight, just as clear you must be conditioned – and admittedly, maybe the whole officiating group demanded a professional upgrade. But it was improper to try to get there through a embarrassing mass assessment and an agenda where the most important thing was to shed pounds and reduce your adipose level.

Our biannual sessions after that adhered to the same routine. Weigh-in, body fat assessment, endurance assessments, laws of the game examinations, analysis of decisions, collaborative exercises and then at the end everything would be summarised. On a file, we all got facts about our physical profile – pointers indicating if we were going in the right direction (down) or wrong direction (up).

Fat percentages were classified into five categories. An acceptable outcome was if you {belong