Hargitay was a divisive figure who was said to be close friends with then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter and others on FIFA's Executive Committee who would decide the winners of the race to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

The Hungarian was brought in as a consultant to the Australian bid and paid a fortune to allegedly help them get access to the highest levels of decision-making in FIFA.

But he had a murky past and faced allegations of shady practices behind the scenes long before he was part of the Australian World Cup bid.

And after he was appointed, Buckley called in his FFA Head of Corporate and Public Affairs Bonita Mersiades to tell her to prepare herself for his arrival.

And he immediately handed her a copy of investigative reporter Andrew Jennings's book Foul! The Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote Rigging and Ticket Scandals which featured Hargitay.

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"I remember vividly when I was told Peter Hargitay was to be our lead consultant," Mersiades told the latest 442FM podcast.

"Ben walked over to the bookshelf – and Ben's very tall – and up on the top shelf he had Foul! He reached up and brought it down, and said, 'You need to reread this, at least the two chapters about Peter Hargitay.'

"He must have known there was something that wasn't going to work well with me because he said, 'And you're going to have to be really nice to him and get on with him...'"

Mersiades admitted Buckley knew what he was getting himself into but said: "The appointments of the international consultants was done at executive level, not a management level."

Hargitay and his sidekicks Fedor Radmann and Andreas Abold received around $15m from the Australian bid for their services which included $3m to prepare the Australian bid book.

But Mersiades adds: "Abold said to us, not once, not twice, but at least four times that no one reads the bid book – and who would? It's 1276 pages!"

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.