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I went to the basement, cleaned the weighing machine I had shunned for many years and looked at the readout: 99.2kg. Throughout the previous eight years, I had lost nearly 10kg. I had evolved from being a referee who was bulky and untrained to being lean and fit. It had taken time, full of persistence, difficult choices and priorities. But it was also the start of a transformation that progressively brought pressure, tension and discomfort around the tests that the leadership had introduced.

You didn't just need to be a skilled referee, it was also about emphasizing eating habits, presenting as a elite umpire, that the body mass and fat percentages were right, otherwise you risked being penalized, getting fewer matches and ending up in the sidelines.

When the refereeing organisation was restructured during the mid-2010 period, the head official introduced a number of changes. During the first year, there was an strong concentration on physical condition, weigh-ins and body fat, and mandatory vision tests. Vision tests might appear as a given practice, but it had not been before. At the training programs they not only evaluated elementary factors like being able to read small text at a specific range, but also targeted assessments designed for professional football referees.

Some officials were identified as color deficient. Another turned out to be lacking vision in one eye and was obliged to retire. At least that's what the gossip said, but no one knew for sure – because about the findings of the eyesight exam, nothing was revealed in extended assemblies. For me, the vision test was a confidence boost. It indicated competence, meticulousness and a goal to get better.

Regarding body mass examinations and adipose measurement, however, I mostly felt disgust, frustration and embarrassment. It wasn't the examinations that were the difficulty, but the method of implementation.

The initial occasion I was forced to endure the degrading process was in the fall of 2010 at our yearly training. We were in the Slovenian capital. On the opening day, the referees were divided into three groups of about 15. When my team had stepped into the big, chilly meeting hall where we were to meet, the leadership instructed us to undress to our underwear. We exchanged glances, but nobody responded or attempted to object.

We gradually removed our garments. The previous night, we had received specific orders not to have any nourishment in the morning but to be as depleted as we could when we were to participate in the examination. It was about registering the lowest mass as possible, and having as reduced adipose level as possible. And to resemble a official should according to the paradigm.

There we were positioned in a lengthy queue, in just our intimate apparel. We were Europe's best referees, top sportsmen, exemplars, grown-ups, caregivers, assertive characters with great integrity … but nobody spoke. We barely looked at each other, our eyes darted a bit anxiously while we were invited two by two. There Collina examined us from completely with an ice-cold stare. Quiet and attentive. We stepped onto the balance one by one. I pulled in my abdomen, stood erect and held my breath as if it would change the outcome. One of the coaches clearly stated: "Eriksson from Sweden, 96.2kg." I sensed how the chief hesitated, looked at me and scanned my nearly naked body. I mused that this lacks respect. I'm an mature individual and forced to be here and be inspected and assessed.

I stepped off the scale and it felt like I was standing in a fog. The identical trainer came forward with a sort of clamp, a instrument resembling a lie detector that he began to pinch me with on assorted regions of the body. The pinching instrument, as the device was called, was chilly and I started a little every time it pressed against me.

The instructor pressed, tugged, applied pressure, gauged, reassessed, mumbled something inaudible, pressed again and compressed my dermis and adipose tissue. After each measurement area, he called out the measurement in mm he could measure.

I had no idea what the figures signified, if it was positive or negative. It lasted approximately a minute. An aide entered the numbers into a record, and when all measurements had been determined, the record swiftly determined my complete adipose level. My value was proclaimed, for all to hear: "The official, 18.7 percent."

Why didn't I, or any other person, speak up?

What stopped us from rise and state what each person felt: that it was demeaning. If I had spoken out I would have simultaneously signed my end of my officiating path. If I had questioned or opposed the methods that the boss had introduced then I wouldn't have got any matches, I'm certain of that.

Naturally, I also aimed to become in better shape, weigh less and achieve my objective, to become a world-class referee. It was obvious you must not be heavy, equally obvious you should be in shape – and admittedly, maybe the complete roster of officials demanded a professional upgrade. But it was improper to try to achieve that through a embarrassing mass assessment and an strategy where the most important thing was to reduce mass and minimise your adipose level.

Our biannual sessions after that maintained the same structure. Mass measurement, measurement of fat percentage, fitness exams, rule tests, evaluation of rulings, collaborative exercises and then at the end a summary was provided. On a document, we all got information about our body metrics – indicators indicating if we were going in the correct path (down) or incorrect path (up).

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