Jonas Eriksson has a long career as a football referee at the highest level. His last match of the career was Portugal-Wales in the 2016 European Championship, a match that Cristiano Ronaldo punctured with his 2-0 goal.

"If you are threatened you will not make the right decision"

For other judges, the reality is different. Two years ago during a match in the lower divisions of Gothenburg football, Daniel Eckebrant received a death threat to himself and his family after a concealed free kick.

- It is completely unreasonable and crazy that you have to work in such a work environment in your profession. If you are threatened, you do not make the right decision. This is a problem that has increased in recent years and makes it more difficult to recruit judges, says Jonas Eriksson to SVT Sport.

The work environment, says Jonas Eriksson, is a problem that must be fixed before the trend of a reduced judiciary can reverse.

- Everyone who contributes to creating such a working environment for the judges should know that if it continues, the judging standard in Sweden will be worse. And the big losers then are the teams that get worse judges, which leads to more criticism and that even fewer want to become judges in the end, says Eriksson.

Dare not report

The number of registered disciplinary cases in the Stockholm Football Association has decreased in the past year. A good result on paper, but according to Mikael Westerholm at the Stockholm Football Association, the reduction may be due to the referees no longer daring to report to the association with fear of the consequences.

- I think it is very difficult if you as a judge feel unlucky and report a law and then you have to get back there five rounds later, it must be extremely tough. I think many people choose to turn the other cheek to and not report and it is not good in the long term either, says Eriksson.