🔗 Share this article

I ventured to the cellar, cleaned the weighing machine I had avoided for a long time and looked at the screen: 99.2kg. Throughout the previous eight years, I had dropped nearly 10kg. I had evolved from being a referee who was overweight and out of shape to being light and well trained. It had required effort, packed with determination, difficult choices and focus. But it was also the commencement of a shift that slowly introduced stress, tension and discomfort around the assessments that the top management had enforced.

You didn't just need to be a competent umpire, it was also about focusing on nutrition, presenting as a premier official, that the mass and body fat were right, otherwise you risked being disciplined, receiving less assignments and landing in the wilderness.

When the officiating body was restructured during the 2010 summer season, the leading figure enacted a series of reforms. During the first year, there was an strong concentration on physical condition, body mass assessments and adipose tissue, and mandatory vision tests. Eyesight examinations might seem like a expected practice, but it wasn't previously before. At the training programs they not only examined basic things like being able to read small text at a particular length, but also specialized examinations adapted for top-level match arbiters.

Some officials were found to be colour blind. Another turned out to be lacking vision in one eye and was compelled to resign. At least that's what the rumours claimed, but nobody was certain – because regarding the results of the optical assessment, details were withheld in extended assemblies. For me, the vision test was a confidence boost. It signalled competence, meticulousness and a desire to improve.

Concerning weighing assessments and fat percentage, however, I largely sensed revulsion, anger and humiliation. It wasn't the tests that were the issue, but the method of implementation.

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 umpires were divided into three units of about 15. When my group had entered the spacious, cool assembly area where we were to meet, the management instructed us to undress to our underclothes. We glanced around, but no one reacted or dared to say anything.

We slowly took off our garments. The prior evening, we had obtained explicit directions not to have any nourishment in the morning but to be as empty as we could when we were to participate in the examination. 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 stood in a long row, in just our intimate apparel. We were the elite arbiters of European football, professional competitors, exemplars, adults, family providers, confident individuals with great integrity … but nobody spoke. We scarcely glanced at each other, our eyes darted a bit apprehensively while we were summoned as duos. There the boss observed us from completely with an chilling gaze. Quiet and observant. We stepped onto the balance singly. I sucked in my abdomen, stood erect and held my breath as if it would change the outcome. One of the coaches audibly declared: "Eriksson from Sweden, 96.2kg." I felt how the chief paused, looked at me and scanned my nearly naked body. I thought to myself that this is not worthy. I'm an mature individual and forced to be here and be inspected and assessed.

I descended from the weighing machine and it appeared as if I was disoriented. The identical trainer advanced with a type of caliper, a instrument resembling a lie detector that he commenced pressing me with on various areas of the body. The measuring tool, as the instrument was called, was cool and I jumped a little every time it touched my body.

The trainer compressed, drew, pressed, quantified, rechecked, spoke unclearly, pressed again and pinched my epidermis and body fat. After each assessment point, he announced the number of millimetres he could assess.

I had no clue what the numbers stood for, if it was favorable or unfavorable. It took maybe just over a minute. An aide recorded the figures into a record, and when all measurements had been calculated, the document rapidly computed my complete adipose level. My value was proclaimed, for all to hear: "Eriksson, 18.7%."

Why did I not, or anyone else, speak up?

Why didn't we rise and say what everyone thought: that it was humiliating. If I had raised my voice I would have simultaneously sealed my professional demise. If I had challenged or resisted the methods that the chief had implemented then I would not have received any fixtures, I'm sure about that.

Certainly, I also wanted to become more athletic, reduce my mass and attain my target, to become a top-tier official. It was evident you ought not to be above the ideal weight, just as clear you ought to be in shape – and certainly, maybe the entire referee corps needed a professional upgrade. But it was improper to try to achieve that through a embarrassing mass assessment and an strategy where the primary focus was to lose weight and minimise your body fat.

Our twice-yearly trainings after that followed the same pattern. Weight check, adipose evaluation, endurance assessments, rule tests, analysis of decisions, collaborative exercises and then at the end a summary was provided. On a file, we all got facts about our body metrics – indicators showing if we were going in the correct path (down) or wrong direction (up).

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