Diary of a referee: ‘Collina observed our half-naked bodies with an ice-cold gaze’

​ In an extract from a new book, international referee Jonas Eriksson describes how top officials were made to strip down to be weighed and have their body fat checkedTo ask Jonas a question, go to the bottom of the articleI 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. Continue reading… Read More