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I went to the cellar, dusted off the balance I had evaded for a long time and looked at the screen: 99.2kg. Over the past eight years, I had lost nearly 10kg. I had gone from being a official who was overweight and untrained to being light and well trained. It had demanded dedication, packed with persistence, tough decisions and commitments. But it was also the start of a transformation that slowly introduced stress, strain and disquiet around the assessments that the leadership had enforced.

You didn't just need to be a skilled referee, it was also about prioritising diet, appearing as a elite official, that the weight and adipose levels were appropriate, otherwise you faced being penalized, being allocated fewer games and landing in the sidelines.

When the officiating body was restructured during the 2010 summer season, Pierluigi Collina introduced a number of changes. During the opening phase, there was an extreme focus on physical condition, body mass assessments and body fat, and mandatory vision tests. Optical checks might seem like a expected practice, but it wasn't previously before. At the sessions they not only examined basic things like being able to read small text at a certain distance, but also specialized examinations adapted for professional football referees.

Some officials were found to be color deficient. Another was revealed as lacking vision in one eye and was compelled to resign. At least that's what the gossip suggested, but no one knew for sure – because regarding the outcomes of the eyesight exam, nothing was revealed in larger groups. For me, the vision test was a confidence boost. It indicated competence, thoroughness and a goal to get better.

When it came to weighing assessments and fat percentage, however, I largely sensed revulsion, frustration and humiliation. It wasn't the examinations that were the problem, but the manner of execution.

The initial occasion I was forced to endure the embarrassing ritual was in the fall of 2010 at our annual course. We were in the Slovenian capital. On the first morning, the referees were split into three teams of about 15. When my group had entered the large, cold meeting hall where we were to gather, the leadership instructed us to remove our clothes to our intimate apparel. We looked at each other, but no one reacted or ventured to speak.

We gradually removed our attire. The evening before, we had obtained explicit directions not to have any nourishment in the morning but to be as devoid as we could when we were to take the assessment. It was about registering the lowest mass as possible, and having as low a fat percentage as possible. And to look like a referee should according to the paradigm.

There we were positioned in a long row, in just our underclothes. We were the continent's top officials, professional competitors, exemplars, grown-ups, parents, assertive characters with strong ethics … but everyone remained mute. We hardly peered at each other, our gazes flickered a bit anxiously while we were called forward as duos. There the boss scrutinized us from top to bottom with an frigid stare. Quiet and attentive. We mounted the weighing machine one by one. I pulled in my abdomen, stood erect and held my breath as if it would have an effect. One of the coaches audibly declared: "Eriksson from Sweden, 96.2kg." I felt how the chief paused, glanced my way and surveyed my almost bare body. I thought to myself that this lacks respect. I'm an mature individual and forced to stand here and be examined and critiqued.

I alighted from the scale and it felt like I was disoriented. The same instructor came forward with a type of caliper, a polygraph-like tool that he started to squeeze me with on various areas of the body. The caliper, as the instrument was called, was chilly and I jumped a little every time it touched my body.

The coach pressed, pulled, forced, measured, reassessed, spoke unclearly, pressed again and squeezed my epidermis and adipose tissue. After each test site, he announced the metric reading he could gauge.

I had no understanding what the values signified, if it was favorable or unfavorable. It required about a minute. An assistant recorded the figures into a record, and when all readings had been established, the document rapidly computed my overall body fat. My result was proclaimed, for all to hear: "The official, 18.7 percent."

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

Why couldn't we get to our feet and express what each person felt: that it was humiliating. If I had voiced my concerns I would have concurrently sealed my end of my officiating path. If I had challenged or opposed the procedures that the boss had implemented then I wouldn't have got any matches, I'm certain of that.

Naturally, I also aimed to become more athletic, be lighter and achieve my objective, to become a elite arbiter. It was obvious you must not be overweight, just as clear you ought to be fit – and certainly, maybe the entire referee corps demanded a standardization. But it was incorrect to try to get there through a embarrassing mass assessment and an agenda where the most important thing was to reduce mass and reduce your fat percentage.

Our twice-yearly trainings subsequently followed the same pattern. Weight check, body fat assessment, fitness exams, rule tests, reviews of interpretations, collaborative exercises and then at the end everything would be summarised. On a document, we all got information about our physical profile – pointers pointing if we were going in the right direction (down) or improper course (up).

Body fat levels were grouped into five groups. An acceptable outcome was if you {belong