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.