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I descended to the lower level, dusted off the weighing machine I had evaded for several years and looked at the readout: 99.2kg. During the last eight years, I had shed nearly 10kg. I had evolved from being a umpire who was overweight and untrained to being slender and fit. It had required effort, packed with determination, difficult choices and priorities. But it was also the beginning of a shift that progressively brought anxiety, pressure and discomfort around the tests that the top management had introduced.

You didn't just need to be a skilled official, it was also about prioritising diet, appearing as a premier umpire, that the weight and adipose levels were appropriate, otherwise you faced being reprimanded, receiving less assignments and landing in the wilderness.

When the refereeing organisation was overhauled during the summer of 2010, the leading figure enacted a number of changes. During the initial period, there was an intense emphasis on physique, measurements of weight and adipose tissue, 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 tested fundamental aspects like being able to read small text at a particular length, but also more specific tests adapted for top-level match arbiters.

Some umpires were discovered as color deficient. Another was revealed as blind in one eye and was compelled to resign. At least that's what the whispers claimed, but no one knew for sure – because about the results of the vision test, no information was shared in big gatherings. For me, the vision test was a reassurance. It indicated expertise, meticulousness and a desire to get better.

When it came to weighing assessments and body fat, however, I mostly felt aversion, anger and degradation. It wasn't the examinations that were the problem, but the method of implementation.

The opening instance I was obliged to experience the humiliating procedure was in the fall of 2010 at our yearly training. We were in a European city. On the opening day, the officials were split into three groups of about 15. When my unit had stepped into the big, chilly meeting hall where we were to gather, the leadership directed us to strip down to our underclothes. We exchanged glances, but nobody responded or dared to say anything.

We slowly took off our attire. The prior evening, we had been given explicit directions not to have any nourishment in the morning but to be as empty as we could when we were to take the assessment. It was about registering the lowest mass as possible, and having as minimal body fat as possible. And to resemble a umpire should according to the standard.

There we remained in a lengthy queue, in just our underclothes. We were the elite arbiters of European football, elite athletes, exemplars, grown-ups, parents, confident individuals with great integrity … but everyone remained mute. We barely looked at each other, our eyes darted a bit nervously while we were invited in pairs. There the chief examined us from top to bottom with an frigid gaze. Mute and observant. We mounted the scale singly. I sucked in my abdomen, stood erect and stopped inhaling as if it would have an effect. One of the trainers loudly announced: "The Swedish official, 96.2 kilograms." I perceived how the boss paused, glanced my way and surveyed my partially unclothed body. I mused that this lacks respect. I'm an adult and obliged to stand here and be evaluated and critiqued.

I stepped off the balance and it appeared as if I was in a daze. The same instructor approached with a sort of clamp, a device similar to a truth machine that he started to squeeze me with on assorted regions of the body. The pinching instrument, as the device was called, was cool and I jumped a little every time it pressed against me.

The trainer pressed, tugged, forced, gauged, reassessed, uttered indistinct words, squeezed once more and pinched my skin and body fat. After each assessment point, he called out the number of millimetres he could assess.

I had no idea what the values signified, if it was good or bad. It required about a minute. An assistant inputted the figures into a document, and when all readings had been calculated, the file swiftly determined my overall body fat. My reading was declared, for all to hear: "Eriksson, 18.7%."

What prevented me from, or somebody else, say anything?

What stopped us from get to our feet and say 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 doubted or challenged the procedures that the boss had introduced then I would not have received any fixtures, I'm convinced of that.

Of course, I also wanted to become in better shape, weigh less and attain my target, to become a world-class referee. It was clear you must not be above the ideal weight, similarly apparent you ought to be in shape – and sure, maybe the entire referee corps required a professional upgrade. But it was wrong to try to achieve that through a degrading weight check and an strategy where the most important thing was to reduce mass and lower your body fat.

Our two annual courses thereafter adhered to the same routine. Weight check, adipose evaluation, endurance assessments, rule tests, analysis of decisions, team activities and then at the end all would be recapped. On a document, we all got data about our fitness statistics – indicators indicating if we were going in the proper course (down) or improper course (up).

Fat percentages were categorised into five categories. An acceptable outcome was if you {belong