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I went to the cellar, dusted off the weighing machine I had avoided for a long time and looked at the screen: 99.2kg. During the last eight years, I had shed nearly 10kg. I had gone from being a official who was overweight and unfit to being light and fit. It had required effort, full of patience, difficult choices and focus. But it was also the commencement of a shift that slowly introduced anxiety, tension and unease around the assessments that the top management had introduced.

You didn't just need to be a skilled official, it was also about prioritising diet, looking like a elite referee, that the mass and fat percentages were right, otherwise you risked being penalized, receiving less assignments and ending up in the wilderness.

When the refereeing organisation was overhauled during the mid-2010 period, the leading figure enacted a series of reforms. During the opening phase, there was an strong concentration on physical condition, measurements of weight and adipose tissue, and mandatory vision tests. Vision tests might appear as a expected practice, but it had not been before. At the courses they not only evaluated elementary factors like being able to decipher tiny letters at a specific range, but also specialized examinations adapted for top-level match arbiters.

Some referees were discovered as colour blind. Another turned out to be partially sighted and was compelled to resign. At least that's what the gossip suggested, but nobody was certain – because regarding the results of the vision test, details were withheld in extended assemblies. For me, the optical check was a comfort. It signalled expertise, thoroughness and a desire to improve.

When it came to weighing assessments and adipose measurement, however, I primarily experienced disgust, frustration and embarrassment. It wasn't the tests that were the difficulty, but the method of implementation.

The first time I was compelled to undergo the embarrassing ritual was in the autumn of 2010 at our annual course. We were in a European city. On the first morning, the referees were divided into three teams of about 15. When my group had entered the spacious, cool meeting hall where we were to meet, the leadership urged us to remove our clothes to our underclothes. We looked at each other, but nobody responded or attempted to object.

We gradually removed our clothes. The prior evening, we had been given specific orders not to consume food or beverages in the morning but to be as empty as we could when we were to undergo the test. It was about showing minimal weight as possible, and having as reduced adipose level as possible. And to resemble a official should according to the paradigm.

There we stood in a long row, in just our underwear. We were Europe's best referees, elite athletes, exemplars, grown-ups, family providers, assertive characters with high principles … but everyone remained mute. We barely looked at each other, our gazes flickered a bit nervously while we were summoned two by two. There Collina examined us from head to toe with an chilling gaze. Quiet and attentive. We mounted the weighing machine one by one. I sucked in my belly, adjusted my posture and ceased breathing as if it would have an effect. One of the instructors loudly announced: "Eriksson from Sweden, 96.2kg." I sensed how the chief stopped, looked at me and surveyed my partially unclothed body. I thought to myself that this is undignified. I'm an mature individual and forced to stand here and be examined and judged.

I stepped off the scale and it seemed like I was standing in a fog. The identical trainer advanced with a type of caliper, a device similar to a truth machine that he began to pinch me with on assorted regions of the body. The caliper, as the instrument was called, was chilly and I jumped a little every time it pressed against me.

The instructor pressed, pulled, forced, gauged, measured again, mumbled something inaudible, pressed again and pinched my skin and adipose tissue. After each test site, he declared the number of millimetres he could assess.

I had no idea what the numbers signified, if it was good or bad. It lasted approximately a minute. An helper recorded the figures into a document, and when all four values had been established, the file quickly calculated my total fat percentage. My result was declared, for all to hear: "The official, 18.7 percent."

Why didn't I, or any other person, say anything?

What stopped us from rise and state what everyone thought: that it was humiliating. If I had voiced my concerns I would have simultaneously signed my career's death sentence. If I had questioned or resisted the techniques that the chief had implemented then I would have been denied any games, I'm sure about that.

Certainly, I also aimed to become fitter, reduce my mass and reach my goal, to become a elite arbiter. It was clear you shouldn't be above the ideal weight, similarly apparent you should be fit – and certainly, maybe the entire referee corps demanded a professionalisation. But it was wrong to try to reach that level through a degrading weight check and an strategy where the key objective was to reduce mass and reduce your adipose level.

Our biannual sessions thereafter maintained the same structure. Mass measurement, measurement of fat percentage, fitness exams, laws of the game examinations, evaluation of rulings, group work and then at the end everything would be summarised. On a document, we all got facts about our physical profile – indicators pointing if we were going in the right direction (down) or improper course (up).

Fat percentages were categorised into five tiers. An satisfactory reading was if you {belong