Jonas Eriksson was a FIFA referee from 2002 to 2018 and officiated at the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Europa League final between Liverpool and Sevilla. This is an edited extract from the book House of Cards, where former international referee Jonas Eriksson describes how top officials were made to strip down to be weighed and have their body fat checked.
“I went down to the basement, dusted off the scales I had avoided for several years and looked at the display: 99.2kg. Over the past eight years, I had lost nearly 10kg. I had gone from being a referee who was heavy and untrained to being light and well trained. It had taken time, filled with patience, tough decisions and priorities. But it was also the beginning of a change that gradually meant stress, pressure, and discomfort around the tests that UEFA’s top management had introduced. You didn’t just need to be a good referee, it was also about prioritising diet, looking like a top-level referee, that the weight and fat percentages were right, otherwise you risked being reprimanded, getting fewer matches and ending up in the cold. When UEFA replaced its refereeing organisation during the summer of 2010, Pierluigi Collina introduced a number of changes. During the first year, there was an extreme focus on physique, measurements of weight and body fat, and mandatory vision tests. Vision tests might sound like a given, but it hadn’t been before. At the courses they not only examined basic things like being able to read small text at a certain distance, but also more specific tests adapted for professional football referees. Some referees were found to be colour blind. Another turned out to be blind in one eye and was forced to quit. At least that’s what the rumours said, but no one knew for sure – because regarding the results of the vision test, nothing was revealed in larger groups. For me, the vision test was a reassurance. It signalled professionalism, thoroughness, and a desire to get better.”
“When it came to tests of weight and fat percentage, however, I mostly felt disgust, anger, and humiliation. It wasn’t the tests that were the problem, but the way they were conducted. The first time I was forced to endure the humiliating procedure was in the autumn of 2010 at our annual course with UEFA. We were in Ljubljana, Slovenia. On the first morning, the referees were divided into three groups of about 15. When my group had entered the large, cold conference room where we were to gather, the management urged us to undress to our underwear. We looked at each other, but no one reacted or dared to say anything. We slowly took off our clothes. The evening before, we had received clear instructions not to eat or drink in the morning but to be as empty as we could when we were to undergo the test. It was about weighing as little as possible, and having as low a fat percentage as possible. And to look like a referee should according to UEFA’s model. There we stood in a long row, in just our underwear. We were Europe’s best referees, elite athletes, role models, adults, parents, strong personalities with great integrity … but no one said anything. We barely looked at each other, our gazes flickered a bit nervously while we were called forward two by two. There Collina observed us from top to bottom with an ice-cold gaze. Silent and observant. We stepped on to the scale one by one. I sucked in my stomach, straightened my back and held my breath as if it would make any difference. One of the instructors loudly announced: “Eriksson, Sweden, 96.2 kilos.” I felt how Collina paused, looked at me and scanned my nearly naked body. I thought to myself that this is not worthy. I’m an adult and forced to stand here and be examined and judged.”
“I stepped off the scale and it felt like I was standing in a fog. The same instructor came forward with a kind of pliers, a polygraph-like tool that he began to pinch me with on different parts of the body. The caliper, as the instrument was called, was cold and I flinched a little every time it touched my body. The instructor squeezed, pulled, pressed, measured, measured again, mumbled something inaudible, pressed again and pinched my skin and body fat. After each measurement area, he called out the number of millimetres he could measure. I had no idea what the numbers stood for, if it was good or bad. It took maybe just over a minute. An assistant entered the numbers into a document, and when all four values had been established, the document quickly calculated my total fat percentage. My value was announced, for all to hear: “Eriksson, 18.7%.” Why didn’t I, or anyone else, say anything? Why didn’t we stand up and say what everyone thought: that it was degrading. If I had raised my voice, I would have simultaneously signed my career’s death sentence. If I had questioned or challenged the methods that Collina had introduced then I wouldn’t have got any matches, I’m convinced of that. Of course, I also wanted to become fitter, weigh less and reach my goal, to become a world-class referee. It was obvious you shouldn’t be overweight, equally obvious you should be fit – and sure, maybe the entire referee corps needed a professionalization. But it was wrong to try to get there through a humiliating weigh-in and an agenda where the most important thing was to lose weight and minimise your fat percentage.”
“Our two annual courses with UEFA thereafter followed the same pattern. Weigh-in, measurement of fat percentage, running tests, rule tests, reviews of interpretations, group work and then at the end everything would be summarised. On a document, we all got facts about our physical profile – arrows pointing if we were going in the right direction (down) or wrong direction (up). Fat percentages were categorised into five groups. An approved result was if you belonged to excellent or very good. After that, there was a red line that told that the groups below were not acceptable. In Slovenia it was communicated that over 70% of all referees had clearly failed and had to improve. In the autumn of 2010, I was in the poor category. "
"At UEFA’s referee course the following year, Collina took the floor to talk about diet, the importance of preparation and bad examples of referees who did not prepare professionally. Collina fixed his gaze on us, and everyone looked down. Like scared schoolboys in front of an angry and strict principal who had just caught the students doing something stupid. After that day, my colleagues and I secretly laughed at Collina’s story about the oyster- and carbonara-eating referee. How crazy it was that our highest chief had people who checked what we put in our mouths. At the same time as it became a standing joke about what one could eat, there was a slightly uneasy feeling of being monitored. And wherever we went in Europe, we thought about what we should order. It wasn’t oysters and definitely no pasta carbonara. Sweets disappeared from the courses. No desserts were served – just fruit. And if at any time, often by mistake, there was any cake or sweet left, hardly any referee dared to approach it. Alcohol during courses and tournaments was phased out. Between certain colleagues, a weight hysteria was created. There were competitions about who had the lowest fat percentage and who had lost most weight since the last measurement. Of course, it was neither beneficial nor healthy. In connection with our courses, positive examples were highlighted of referees who had lost weight and reduced their fat percentage – instead of being praised for their decisions on the pitch or performances in difficult matches.”
