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I descended to the basement, wiped the balance I had shunned for several years and looked at the readout: 99.2kg. During the last eight years, I had dropped nearly 10kg. I had transformed from being a umpire who was heavy and unfit to being lean and fit. It had demanded dedication, full of patience, difficult choices and commitments. But it was also the start of a shift that gradually meant stress, strain and unease around the examinations that the leadership had enforced.

You didn't just need to be a good referee, it was also about focusing on nutrition, presenting as a premier official, that the weight and fat percentages were appropriate, otherwise you faced being reprimanded, receiving less assignments and landing in the sidelines.

When the officiating body was replaced during the mid-2010 period, the head official introduced a number of changes. During the first year, there was an extreme focus on physical condition, weigh-ins and fat percentage, and mandatory vision tests. Vision tests might appear as a given practice, but it hadn't been before. At the courses they not only examined basic things like being able to read small text at a specific range, but also targeted assessments tailored to elite soccer officials.

Some officials were identified as colour blind. Another proved to be lacking vision in one eye and was obliged to retire. At least that's what the whispers suggested, but nobody was certain – because concerning the outcomes of the vision test, nothing was revealed in larger groups. For me, the optical check was a reassurance. It signalled competence, attention to detail and a goal to get better.

Concerning body mass examinations and adipose measurement, however, I largely sensed aversion, anger and degradation. It wasn't the assessments that were the difficulty, but the method of implementation.

The initial occasion I was forced to endure the humiliating procedure was in the autumn of 2010 at our regular session. We were in the Slovenian capital. On the initial session, the officials were separated into three groups of about 15. When my team had stepped into the big, chilly meeting hall where we were to meet, the management directed us to strip down to our underclothes. We exchanged glances, but nobody responded or dared to say anything.

We carefully shed our garments. The previous night, we had obtained specific orders not to have any nourishment in the morning but to be as depleted as we could when we were to undergo the test. It was about showing minimal weight as possible, and having as low a fat percentage as possible. And to appear as a referee should according to the paradigm.

There we stood in a lengthy queue, in just our intimate apparel. We were Europe's best referees, top sportsmen, exemplars, grown-ups, caregivers, confident individuals with high principles … but nobody spoke. We scarcely glanced at each other, our gazes flickered a bit nervously while we were invited two by two. There the boss scrutinized us from head to toe with an ice-cold stare. Mute and observant. We mounted the balance singly. I sucked in my abdomen, stood erect and ceased breathing as if it would change the outcome. One of the coaches audibly declared: "Eriksson from Sweden, 96.2kg." I sensed how Collina hesitated, looked at me and scanned my partially unclothed body. I mused that this is undignified. I'm an grown person and compelled to be here and be inspected and critiqued.

I stepped off the scale and it seemed like I was in a daze. The same instructor advanced with a kind of pliers, a device similar to a truth machine that he started to squeeze me with on different parts of the body. The pinching instrument, as the tool was called, was cool and I flinched a little every time it made contact.

The coach squeezed, tugged, pressed, measured, reassessed, spoke unclearly, squeezed once more and pinched my epidermis and body fat. After each measurement area, he declared the number of millimetres he could assess.

I had no clue what the values signified, if it was good or bad. It took maybe just over a minute. An assistant recorded the numbers into a file, and when all measurements had been established, the document rapidly computed my overall body fat. My result was announced, for all to hear: "Eriksson, 18.7%."

What prevented me from, or somebody else, voice an opinion?

What stopped us from rise and express what all were thinking: that it was humiliating. If I had voiced my concerns I would have concurrently signed my end of my officiating path. If I had questioned or opposed the procedures that the chief had implemented then I would have been denied any games, I'm certain of that.

Certainly, I also desired to become fitter, be lighter and attain my target, to become a top-tier official. It was evident you ought not to be overweight, similarly apparent you ought to be conditioned – and certainly, maybe the whole officiating group demanded a professional upgrade. But it was improper to try to reach that level through a embarrassing mass assessment and an agenda where the most important thing was to reduce mass and reduce your fat percentage.

Our two annual courses subsequently followed the same pattern. Mass measurement, measurement of fat percentage, endurance assessments, regulation quizzes, reviews of interpretations, group work and then at the end everything would be summarised. On a file, we all got facts about our body metrics – indicators indicating if we were going in the correct path (down) or improper course (up).

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