Mersiades recently launched FairPlay Publishing for books on Australian football, including their debut launch of the new Encyclopedia of the Socceroos by Andrew Howe.

But she was formerly the Head of Corporate and Public Affairs at Football Federation Australia and a key member of the Australian World Cup bid team, until she was sacked in 2010 in a row over so-called FIFA powerbroker Peter Hargitay's inclusion in the Australian bid.

Australia dropped out of bidding for the 2018 event to focus on 2022, but were ultimately beaten by a controversial Qatar bid, which then became the focus for probes into FIFA corruption, including FIFA's own Garcia Report, later dismissed as a whitewash by critics.

But in the new 442FM podcast, Mersiades says she reckons Russia should have faced just as much scrutiny as Qatar.

Russia have since been exposed for their elaborate doping conspiracy at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 and have also been stripped of Olympic medals from London 2012.

They are also at the centre of an American investigation into their influence and use of social media in the USA presidential election, their financial ties with Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum in the UK.

Yet few questions have been asked about their World Cup hosting win in 2010.

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"I actually think Russia are lucky that Qatar won," Mersiades told the 442FM podcast. "Russia won in two rounds of voting. Qatar took four rounds of voting.

"So there was a greater competition there, and there is no doubt when you look at the FIFA way, and what that entails, Russia was right in there.

"Look at what they did in relation to doping, do you think they weren't gonna win the World Cup? I mean they were always going to win that...

"And the joke in relation to the Garcia Report is when they trotted off to Russia and the Russians said, 'Oh, sorry, we can't help you because we were leasing our computers and we've thrown them out...'

"As I've said before, this is a country that put a dog on the moon in 1959, yet they don't know about backing up their computers. I mean it just beggars belief," she continued.

"The Garcia reports says, 'Well, we couldn't do anything about it so therefore, they didn't do anything wrong...'

"But as any medical practitioner will tell you, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Hear Bonita talk about this, plus much much more in the new podcast, available now.

To learn more about the Encyclopedia of Socceroos and who and what are some of the features, join Andrew Howe and launch events in Sydney (THIS FRIDAY), Newcastle (Monday 28th), Melbourne (Tuesday 29th), Ipswich (Thursday 31st), Adelaide (Wednesday 6th) and Canberra (Saturday 9th).  Order the book HERE.