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I went to the basement, wiped the balance I had evaded for several years and glanced at the screen: 99.2kg. Over the past eight years, I had lost nearly 10kg. I had transformed from being a official who was overweight and untrained to being lean and well trained. It had required effort, full of determination, hard calls and focus. But it was also the commencement of a change that slowly introduced stress, tension and unease around the tests that the authorities had implemented.

You didn't just need to be a competent official, it was also about prioritising diet, presenting as a premier official, that the mass and adipose levels were appropriate, otherwise you were in danger of being penalized, getting fewer matches and finding yourself in the cold.

When the refereeing organisation was overhauled during the summer of 2010, the leading figure introduced a set of modifications. During the initial period, there was an intense emphasis on physical condition, measurements of weight and adipose tissue, and compulsory eyesight exams. Optical checks might sound like a expected practice, but it had not been before. At the training programs they not only tested fundamental aspects like being able to read small text at a certain distance, but also targeted assessments tailored to professional football referees.

Some officials were discovered as color deficient. Another was revealed as partially sighted and was forced to quit. At least that's what the gossip claimed, but everyone was unsure – because about the outcomes of the vision test, details were withheld in larger groups. For me, the vision test was a comfort. It signalled competence, attention to detail and a desire to improve.

When it came to body mass examinations and body fat, however, I largely sensed revulsion, anger and degradation. It wasn't the tests that were the problem, but the way they were conducted.

The first time I was compelled to undergo the embarrassing ritual was in the late 2010 period at our annual course. We were in the Slovenian capital. On the initial session, the officials 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 undress to our underclothes. We looked at each other, but no one reacted or ventured to speak.

We slowly took off our garments. The evening before, we had obtained specific orders not to eat or drink in the morning but to be as empty as we could when we were to participate in the examination. It was about registering the lowest mass as possible, and having as minimal body fat as possible. And to resemble a umpire should according to the paradigm.

There we remained in a long row, in just our intimate apparel. We were the continent's top officials, elite athletes, inspirations, adults, caregivers, assertive characters with strong ethics … but nobody spoke. We hardly peered at each other, our looks shifted a bit nervously while we were summoned as duos. There the chief scrutinized us from top to bottom with an ice-cold look. Mute and attentive. We stepped on the scale individually. I contracted my belly, straightened my back and stopped inhaling as if it would have an effect. One of the instructors loudly announced: "Eriksson from Sweden, 96.2kg." I perceived how Collina stopped, glanced my way and surveyed my partially unclothed body. I thought to myself that this is not worthy. I'm an mature individual and compelled to stand here and be inspected and critiqued.

I alighted from the scale and it seemed like I was in a daze. The identical trainer approached with a type of caliper, a device similar to a truth machine that he started to squeeze me with on different parts of the body. The measuring tool, as the instrument was called, was cold and I flinched a little every time it pressed against me.

The coach squeezed, drew, pressed, gauged, measured again, spoke unclearly, pressed again and pinched my skin and fatty deposits. After each test site, he announced the metric reading he could assess.

I had no idea what the figures represented, if it was good or bad. It required about a minute. An aide entered the numbers into a document, and when all four values had been established, the file swiftly determined my overall body fat. My reading was announced, for all to hear: "Eriksson, 18.7%."

What prevented me from, or any other person, speak up?

Why couldn't we get to our feet and state what each person felt: that it was demeaning. If I had voiced my concerns I would have concurrently signed my end of my officiating path. If I had questioned or opposed the techniques that Collina had introduced then I would have been denied any games, I'm convinced of that.

Certainly, I also wanted to become more athletic, be lighter and reach my goal, to become a top-tier official. It was clear you shouldn't be above the ideal weight, similarly apparent you must be conditioned – and admittedly, maybe the entire referee corps demanded a professionalisation. But it was wrong to try to get there through a humiliating weigh-in and an plan where the key objective was to lose weight and reduce your body fat.

Our two annual courses subsequently adhered to the same routine. Mass measurement, body fat assessment, fitness exams, laws of the game examinations, reviews of interpretations, group work and then at the end a summary was provided. On a file, we all got information about our fitness statistics – arrows indicating if we were going in the correct path (down) or wrong direction (up).

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