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I descended to the basement, dusted off the scales I had evaded for several years and glanced at the display: 99.2kg. Over the past eight years, I had shed nearly 10kg. I had gone from being a umpire who was heavy and unfit to being light and well trained. It had taken time, full of patience, tough decisions and focus. But it was also the commencement of a shift that slowly introduced stress, strain and unease around the tests that the authorities had enforced.

You didn't just need to be a good umpire, it was also about prioritising diet, presenting as a top-level official, that the weight and body fat were correct, otherwise you risked being reprimanded, getting fewer matches and finding yourself in the wilderness.

When the regulatory group was overhauled during the mid-2010 period, Pierluigi Collina brought in a number of changes. During the first year, there was an extreme focus on physical condition, measurements of weight and body fat, and required optical assessments. Eyesight examinations might appear as a expected practice, but it wasn't previously before. At the courses they not only examined basic things like being able to see fine print at a specific range, but also more specific tests tailored to professional football referees.

Some umpires were discovered as unable to distinguish certain hues. Another was revealed as blind in one eye and was compelled to resign. At least that's what the rumours suggested, but everyone was unsure – because regarding the findings of the eyesight exam, details were withheld in larger groups. For me, the eyesight exam was a comfort. It demonstrated competence, attention to detail and a desire to enhance.

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

The opening instance I was forced to endure the degrading process was in the late 2010 period at our regular session. We were in Ljubljana, Slovenia. On the initial session, the umpires were split into three teams of about 15. When my unit had walked into the spacious, cool meeting hall where we were to assemble, the leadership urged us to strip down to our underwear. We looked at each other, but no one reacted or ventured to speak.

We slowly took off our clothes. The previous night, we had obtained explicit directions not to consume food or beverages in the morning but to be as devoid as we could when we were to take the assessment. It was about weighing as little as possible, and having as low a fat percentage as possible. And to appear as a referee should according to the standard.

There we remained in a extended line, in just our underwear. We were the continent's top officials, professional competitors, inspirations, grown-ups, caregivers, strong personalities with strong ethics … but nobody spoke. We hardly peered at each other, our looks shifted a bit anxiously while we were summoned as duos. There Collina examined us from head to toe with an chilling stare. Silent and watchful. We stepped onto the scale one by one. I contracted my abdomen, straightened my back and held my breath as if it would change the outcome. One of the coaches loudly announced: "Eriksson from Sweden, 96.2kg." I felt how Collina paused, glanced my way and scanned my nearly naked body. I mused that this lacks respect. I'm an grown person and compelled to be here and be inspected and assessed.

I stepped off the scale and it seemed like I was standing in a fog. The equivalent coach approached with a sort of clamp, a polygraph-like tool that he commenced pressing me with on different parts of the body. The measuring tool, as the instrument was called, was cool and I flinched a little every time it touched my body.

The coach compressed, drew, forced, quantified, rechecked, uttered indistinct words, squeezed once more and pinched my skin and fatty deposits. After each measurement area, he announced the number of millimetres he could gauge.

I had no idea what the values represented, if it was favorable or unfavorable. It required about a minute. An assistant inputted the values into a document, and when all four values had been established, the record quickly calculated my overall body fat. My reading was proclaimed, for all to hear: "The official, 18.7 percent."

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

What stopped us from stand up and express what everyone thought: that it was demeaning. If I had spoken out I would have at the same time signed my end of my officiating path. If I had doubted or opposed the methods that the boss had introduced then I would not have received any games, I'm convinced of that.

Certainly, I also wanted to become more athletic, reduce my mass and reach my goal, to become a world-class referee. It was evident you must not be above the ideal weight, similarly apparent you ought to be in shape – and certainly, maybe the whole officiating group needed a professional upgrade. But it was incorrect to try to reach that level through a degrading weight check and an strategy where the most important thing was to shed pounds and reduce your adipose level.

Our biannual sessions after that maintained the same structure. Mass measurement, measurement of fat percentage, running tests, regulation quizzes, evaluation of rulings, collaborative exercises and then at the end a summary was provided. On a file, we all got information about our physical profile – arrows indicating if we were going in the right direction (down) or wrong direction (up).

Adipose measurements were grouped into five categories. An approved result was if you {belong