In the new FTBL Podcast, Rudan reveals how he's gone about revolutionising Wellington Phoenix that has seen the club's fortunes turn around from being an apparent Dead Club Walking to potential Grand Final contenders.

The former Big Blue Man at Sydney FC went on to cut his coaching teeth at Rockdale City Suns and Sydney United in the NPL before finally getting his break in the A-League with the New Zealand side.

Since then he's managed to nurture astonishing match-winning performances out of players like David Williams and Roy Krishna to bring the good times back to Westpac Stadium.

But in the FTBL Podcast, he also reveals how he was almost broken by the sport when a dream move to Europe turned into a police investigation that saw him arrested and jailed.

"It's a part of my life that changed me as a person," he admits. "It's where I lost that little bit of trust..."

As a 25 year old in 2000, Rudan left Sydney NSL side Northern Spirit after paying out his contract to move overseas to join German club Alemannia Aachen as a free agent.

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He immediately fitted into the starting squad and was performing well – but the first sign of trouble came after Rudan had a shocker in a 5-1 thrashing against Borussia Monchengladbach.

As he left the field, Rudan flicked the bird at fans and was caught on camera in the act. The next day, local newspapers carried the pic and flagged a 10,000 Mark fine from the German FA for the gesture.

But they also flagged something else.

Rudan revealed: "I asked a team-mate to translate the article for me and he said they called me the 600,000 Mark man...and I said, 'What do you mean by that?' He said, 'Well, that's what they paid for your transfer...'

"That was the moment where I thought, 'Hang on a sec, I'm a free player.' I got on to the guy acting as my agent and he said, 'Don't worry about it...'

"But that's when the alarm bells started ringing..."

Some 18 months later, police woke him up at home at dawn to arrest him.

 

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"We'd just come back from pre-season in Portugal and at 6am they started knocking on my window," revealed Rudan.

"I thought it was Lozza [Australian team-mate Goran Lozanovski, who been brought in from South Melbourne]. I thought he wanted some bread or milk or something because he was a lazy eater...! He was always pinching something from me.

"But it was three police officers who stormed their way in. It was pretty scary, you know."

He added: "They emptied out all my cupboards looking for evidence and took me straight to the local prison cell and kept me there for the night.

"It was pretty cold and I never slept a wink – but I remember one of the officers opening my cell and saying: 'There's a guy called Spider looking for you...!'

"It was Zeljko Kalac who was playing for Roda at the time - me, Bimbi [Steve Corica], Lozza had organised a big night out and here I was in a cell and they had no idea."

The next day, his agent arranged a lawyer to see him in jail and made him sign a paper which Rudan thought just related to his fee.

But when he was moved to another jail, he found a friend behind bars who translated the paperwork – and immediately helped Rudan get another lawyer.

"This lawyer who was supposed to be protecting me, was actually protecting my agent," said Rudan. "I never heard from the agent again. His phone went to voicemail and I found out he'd escaped to Bosnia."

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Rudan had been caught up as an innocent victim in a club transfer fraud which eventually saw the club treasurer convicted of fraud over mysterious "suitcases of cash" being exchanged for players.

"Before I knew it I was in the proper prison in Aachen, and I remember seeing the doctor there who had a big bowl of condoms on his desk," said Rudan. "And he said, 'Will you be needing one of these?'

"And I asked, 'Is this an all-male jail, or are there females here as well?' He said it was all male – and that's when I really began to shit myself..."

He added: "I spent a week there, but after I got a new lawyer I was out in two days and got my passport back."

The nightmare continued afterwards though because the club decided to let Rudan go after the scandal and it took another two years before the case was heard in court.

 

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Club officials were jailed or fined for their part while all charges were dismissed against Rudan, who then settled out of court with the key people who landed him in the ordeal.

"It was unfortunate," he admits on the FTBL Podcast. "You finally realise a dream and go to Europe...and you get there and you love this. This is football. This is proper football...

"You're just entrenched in this real football culture. It's just all around you. It's just part of you.

"I was disappointed because my dream was over in terms of playing in Europe. Just mentally and physically, I was unstable.

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"I turned to alcohol. I'm not an alcoholic by any stretch, but that was a vice for me where I felt a bit of comfort. I used to escape to different pubs in Belgium and Holland so I just wouldn't be found.

"Lozza eventually found me and said, 'Look I'm going to go drink for drink with you...' and I guess that was a turning point where I started to get myself back on track."

Rudan says he now uses that experience from his own life when he's recruiting others to join his team.

"I look at their journeys and what they've had to overcome and what they went through, because  looking back, that was a pretty dark time in my career and it shook me up and it changed me," he said.

Now though, he's just looking to the future and is refusing to put a limit on what his new-look Phoenix side can achieve.

"I don't put a ceiling on where this team can go and where these players can go. I believe in these guys so much, there's so much quality about them as well," he said. "They're great human beings.

"Some of them just never got out of their comfort zones or did just what they needed to do. My job is to get the best out of them and get them to where I really believe they can get to."

Listen to the full podcast for the complete chat and more details on his German nightmare move.

 

   SEE PHOENIX TRAIN IN CESSNOCK HERE