Player “was at the end”
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Transfer negotiations can be tough, lengthy and full of stumbling blocks. Professionals sometimes want to force their move to their dream club and in order to do so they risk a lot of trouble with their current employer, lose credit with the fans or cause astonishment among their superiors. Transfermarkt looks at transfers in the past that were characterized by loud background noise. This time: Alemannia Aachen’s new signing Mark Rudan and the ominous suitcase of money.
This article first appeared on Transfermarkt on November 1st, 2025.
Mark Rudan played 15 times for Alemannia Aachen between January and December 2001. However, the central defender did not go down in the history of today’s third division team for sporting reasons. The Australian, who now works as a head coach, said about this chapter in the “FTBL” podcast in 2019: “This is a part of my life that has changed me as a person.” The whole thing has to do with a supposedly free transfer to the second division, bogus invoices for a fictitious transfer fee and prison stays. Or in short: the “money suitcase affair”. But first things first.
Rudan left Northern Spirit in Sydney at the beginning of 2001 to join Alemannia Aachen – for free. Eventually his contract expired, which allowed him a free transfer. Actually. Rudan liked the Aachen team and immediately made it into the second division starting eleven. So far so good. Until Borussia Mönchengladbach swept Rudan and his teammates off the pitch 6-1 on February 24, 2001. The then 25-year-old was sent off after half an hour with a yellow-red card, had no control over the spectators and showed the middle finger. The DFB is said to have imposed a fine of 10,000 marks. But that wasn’t Rudan’s biggest problem from then on. The local newspapers not only reported on his misfire, but also uncovered a highly explosive story.
“I asked a teammate to translate the article for me and he said they called me the 600,000 mark man… And I asked, ‘What does that mean?’ He said: ‘Well, this is the transfer fee for your transfer,'” the former defender recalled. At that moment he thought: “’Wait a minute, I’m free!’ I called my advisor and he said, ‘Don’t worry.’ But that’s when alarm bells rang for me.”
When the Australian players Rudan and Goran Lozanovski, whom Alemannia signed from South Melbourne in the summer of 2001, were transferred, a total of 590,000 marks disappeared into nowhere – 290,000 marks were lost when it came to Rudan. Player agents and a club official filled their pockets, it was said. With a sum that was actually supposed to go to Northern Spirit as transfer compensation. Only there was no trace of this money. “An obscure affair is causing a stir at the second division soccer team Alemannia Aachen,” wrote the “Spiegel” on November 6, 2001. “Where are the 290,000 marks?” asked the “Kicker” two days later. Which prompted the club board to submit an affidavit “that no money had flowed to him or anyone close to him.”
Alemannia Aachen and the ominous manager Bill Collins
What had happened? The German club’s bosses are said to have handed over the transfer money in a suitcase at the office to a man called Bill Collins, who they believed was the manager of Northen Spirit. It’s just a shame that the same amount never found its way to Sydney. “We assume that there is no Bill Collins,” said senior public prosecutor Robert Deller. Alemannia’s treasurer, Bernd Krings, who was involved, claimed: “I assumed that the Australian was Northern manager Bill Collins.” Well, yes.
We don’t know who received the money.
“We were shocked when we heard from Sydney that the money had not arrived there,” explained Aachen President Hans Bay. Together with his board colleagues Manfred Grandt (vice) and Krings, he stopped work with immediate effect because the association’s board of directors had filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons with the Aachen public prosecutor’s office. “We don’t know who received the money,” said the chairman of the board of directors and mayor, Jürgen Linden, after initially “no irregularities” were identified.
Meanwhile, the police were at Rudan’s door at 6 a.m. one morning. His story from 2019 goes like this: At first he suspected that Lozanovski, whom Alemannia had signed from South Melbourne in the summer of 2001, came by, like many times before, to help himself. “But there were three police officers who stormed in. It was pretty scary. They searched all my closets for evidence and took me straight to the cell at the local jail for the night.” Pre-trial detention instead of professional football under coach Jörg Berger.
Rudan’s agent then sent a lawyer to prison to obtain the player’s signature. Later, after being transferred to another detention center, it was apparently discovered that foul play had been committed when the signed paper was translated. “This lawyer who was supposed to protect me was actually protecting my advisor.” He never heard anything about this again. Rudan was released again, but his career in Aachen was over and the club announced their separation.
Consequences in the “Money Suitcase” affair: Penalties for advisors and treasurers
The players’ agents Hans Hägele and the initially fugitive Frano Zelic, who later confessed, as well as treasurer Krings were also pilloried and were supposed to be temporarily imprisoned. According to the judiciary’s initial findings, the fake transfer fee was “divided among those involved according to a previously unknown key.”
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“It’s about suspicion of infidelity, fraud and forgery of documents. In addition, in another individual case, there is suspicion of tax evasion against the former board member,” explained emergency board chairman and mayor Linden. Even former coach Eugen Hach was put under scrutiny and questioned. According to the “Welt” he said: “I wanted the player. I knew nothing about how the matter was handled. I’m clean.” Meanwhile, the Aachen emergency board contacted all clubs with which transfers had been completed in the last three years in order to reconcile amounts. Press spokesman Marco Clemens was also investigated for alleged complicity. The case spread merrily. And right in the middle: Mark Rudan.
According to his statements, it turned out that he was innocently involved in a transfer fraud. It was initially said that the player had largely confessed, but his role in the cheating maneuver still had to be clarified. The “Kicker” wrote on March 8, 2002: “During the course of the proceedings, Rudan confirmed that he had received 35,000 euros from (advisor) Zelic, but he was not prosecuted for this because he was able to credibly assure that he had understood the amount as a earnest money payment.”
The charges against the 50-year-old were dropped, but other people involved who had maneuvered him into this situation got off less lightly. Ex-treasurer Krings and the unlicensed consultant Zelic each received suspended sentences of 14 months. Hägele had to pay 4,000 euros because of a false affidavit – and another 100,000 euros to Alemannia Aachen.
“It was unfortunate,” said ex-professional Rudan, who learned to love football far from home in Aachen. “I was disappointed because my dream of playing in Europe was shattered. I was mentally and physically exhausted.” Rudan saw escape in the consumption of alcohol, as he revealed. “I’m not an alcoholic by any means, but it was a vice that gave me some comfort. I often fled to various bars in Belgium and Holland just to avoid being found.” Rudan, who moved from Aachen to Nanjing Yoyo in China in 2002 and shortly afterwards to Sydney United, now uses his previous experience as a head coach when signing new players. “I look at their lives, what they had to overcome and what they went through, because looking back, it was a pretty dark time in my career that shook me and changed me.” Most recently, from January 2022 to May 2024, he was on the sidelines for the Western Sydney Wanderers.
Note: This article first appeared on Transfermarkt in November 2025 and has now been published again.