Diary of a Umpire: 'Collina Scrutinized Our Half-Naked Bodies with an Chilling Gaze'

I went to the cellar, cleaned the scales I had avoided for a long time and glanced at the display: 99.2kg. Throughout the previous eight years, I had lost nearly 10kg. I had transformed from being a official who was overweight and unfit to being slender and conditioned. It had required effort, filled with determination, hard calls and commitments. But it was also the start of a shift that gradually meant stress, strain and discomfort around the tests that the leadership had enforced.

You didn't just need to be a competent umpire, it was also about focusing on nutrition, looking like a top-level referee, that the body mass and body fat were right, otherwise you risked being disciplined, getting fewer matches and landing in the sidelines.

When the regulatory group was replaced during the mid-2010 period, Pierluigi Collina enacted a series of reforms. During the opening phase, there was an extreme focus on physical condition, weigh-ins and fat percentage, and mandatory vision tests. Vision tests might appear as a standard practice, but it hadn't been before. At the courses they not only evaluated elementary factors like being able to read small text at a particular length, but also more specific tests tailored to elite soccer officials.

Some referees were identified as unable to distinguish certain hues. Another proved to be lacking vision in one eye and was forced to quit. At least that's what the gossip suggested, but no one knew for sure – because about the results of the eyesight exam, no information was shared in big gatherings. For me, the eyesight exam was a comfort. It indicated expertise, attention to detail and a aim to enhance.

When it came to tests of weight and body fat, however, I primarily experienced disgust, frustration and humiliation. It wasn't the assessments that were the issue, but the manner of execution.

The initial occasion I was compelled to undergo the embarrassing ritual was in the late 2010 period at our annual course. We were in Ljubljana, Slovenia. On the initial session, the referees were separated into three groups of about 15. When my group had entered the large, cold conference room where we were to meet, the leadership instructed us to remove our clothes to our intimate apparel. We glanced around, but nobody responded or dared to say anything.

We slowly took off our clothes. The previous night, we had obtained specific orders not to eat or drink 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 reduced adipose level as possible. And to resemble a umpire should according to the standard.

There we stood in a lengthy queue, in just our intimate apparel. We were the continent's top officials, elite athletes, role models, adults, family providers, confident individuals with great integrity … but nobody spoke. We barely looked at each other, our eyes darted a bit anxiously while we were summoned as duos. There the chief scrutinized us from top to bottom with an chilling stare. Silent and observant. We stepped on the balance singly. I contracted my belly, adjusted my posture and ceased breathing as if it would change the outcome. One of the trainers loudly announced: "Eriksson, Sweden, 96.2 kilos." I sensed how Collina paused, glanced my way and surveyed my almost bare body. I reflected that this is not worthy. I'm an mature individual and obliged to remain here and be examined and critiqued.

I stepped off the balance and it seemed like I was disoriented. The same instructor approached with a kind of pliers, a polygraph-like tool that he started to squeeze me with on various areas of the body. The caliper, as the device was called, was cool and I flinched a little every time it pressed against me.

The trainer pressed, drew, pressed, gauged, measured again, spoke unclearly, pressed again and compressed my skin and adipose tissue. After each measurement area, he called out the number of millimetres he could measure.

I had no clue what the figures represented, if it was good or bad. It lasted approximately a minute. An helper inputted the values into a document, and when all readings had been calculated, the record swiftly determined my total fat percentage. My result was proclaimed, for all to hear: "Eriksson, eighteen point seven percent."

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

What stopped us from rise and say what all were thinking: that it was degrading. If I had raised my voice I would have concurrently signed my professional demise. If I had questioned or challenged the methods that the boss had implemented then I wouldn't have got any games, I'm sure about that.

Certainly, I also wanted to become in better shape, reduce my mass and achieve my objective, to become a top-tier official. It was evident you shouldn't be overweight, equally obvious you ought to be conditioned – and admittedly, maybe the entire referee corps needed a standardization. But it was wrong to try to reach that level through a embarrassing mass assessment and an strategy where the primary focus was to shed pounds and lower your body fat.

Our two annual courses after that followed the same pattern. Weigh-in, adipose evaluation, endurance assessments, regulation quizzes, evaluation of rulings, team activities and then at the end a summary was provided. On a report, we all got information about our physical profile – arrows pointing if we were going in the right direction (down) or improper course (up).

Body fat levels were grouped into five groups. An satisfactory reading was if you {belong