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I ventured to the basement, cleaned the scales I had avoided for several years and looked at the screen: 99.2kg. Throughout the previous eight years, I had lost nearly 10kg. I had gone from being a umpire who was overweight and unfit to being lean and fit. It had required effort, filled with patience, difficult choices and focus. But it was also the commencement of a shift that gradually meant anxiety, pressure and discomfort around the examinations that the leadership had enforced.

You didn't just need to be a skilled official, it was also about prioritising diet, presenting as a premier referee, that the weight and fat percentages were right, otherwise you risked being reprimanded, receiving less assignments and finding yourself in the cold.

When the regulatory group was restructured during the mid-2010 period, Pierluigi Collina introduced a number of changes. During the initial period, there was an strong concentration on body shape, weigh-ins and adipose tissue, and required optical assessments. Eyesight examinations might appear as a given practice, but it had not been before. At the training programs they not only tested basic things like being able to read small text at a certain distance, but also targeted assessments adapted for elite soccer officials.

Some officials were discovered as unable to distinguish certain hues. Another was revealed as partially sighted and was obliged to retire. At least that's what the gossip said, but nobody was certain – because concerning the outcomes of the eyesight exam, no information was shared in big gatherings. For me, the eyesight exam was a comfort. It indicated competence, thoroughness and a goal to improve.

When it came to tests of weight and body fat, however, I mostly felt disgust, frustration and embarrassment. It wasn't the assessments that were the issue, but the way they were conducted.

The first time I was forced to endure the humiliating procedure was in the late 2010 period at our yearly training. We were in Ljubljana, Slovenia. On the opening day, the referees were separated into three units of about 15. When my group had stepped into the large, cold assembly area where we were to assemble, the supervisors directed us to remove our clothes to our underclothes. We glanced around, but everyone remained silent or attempted to object.

We carefully shed our clothes. The previous night, we had received specific orders not to consume food or beverages in the morning but to be as depleted as we could when we were to undergo the test. It was about weighing as little as possible, and having as minimal body fat as possible. And to look like a referee should according to the paradigm.

There we remained in a long row, in just our underclothes. We were the continent's top officials, top sportsmen, role models, grown-ups, family providers, assertive characters with strong ethics … but everyone remained mute. We barely looked at each other, our looks shifted a bit anxiously while we were summoned two by two. There Collina examined us from completely with an frigid look. Silent and observant. We mounted the weighing machine individually. I sucked in my belly, stood erect and ceased breathing as if it would have an effect. One of the coaches loudly announced: "The Swedish official, 96.2 kilograms." I perceived how the chief hesitated, glanced my way and surveyed my nearly naked body. I mused that this is not worthy. I'm an mature individual and compelled to stand here and be inspected and judged.

I stepped off the balance and it appeared as if I was standing in a fog. The identical trainer approached with a type of caliper, a device similar to a truth machine that he commenced pressing me with on different parts of the body. The caliper, as the device was called, was cool and I started a little every time it made contact.

The trainer compressed, drew, forced, quantified, measured again, mumbled something inaudible, pressed again and compressed my skin and body fat. After each test site, he announced the number of millimetres he could gauge.

I had no clue what the values stood for, if it was good or bad. It took maybe just over a minute. An helper inputted the values into a record, and when all measurements had been established, the document quickly calculated my overall body fat. My value was announced, for all to hear: "Eriksson, 18.7%."

Why did I not, or any other person, voice an opinion?

Why couldn't we rise and express what everyone thought: that it was degrading. If I had spoken out I would have simultaneously executed my end of my officiating path. If I had questioned or resisted the procedures that the chief had introduced then I would have been denied any games, I'm sure about that.

Naturally, I also wanted to become more athletic, reduce my mass and reach my goal, to become a elite arbiter. It was obvious you shouldn't be heavy, similarly apparent you should be fit – and certainly, maybe the whole officiating group demanded a professional upgrade. But it was incorrect to try to achieve that through a degrading weight check and an agenda where the most important thing was to reduce mass and minimise your adipose level.

Our twice-yearly trainings thereafter followed the same pattern. Weigh-in, measurement of fat percentage, fitness exams, rule tests, analysis of decisions, collaborative exercises and then at the end everything would be summarised. On a file, we all got data about our physical profile – pointers indicating if we were going in the correct path (down) or incorrect path (up).

Adipose measurements were classified into five categories. An satisfactory reading was if you {belong