When you occupy a sports market where the competition is fiercer than at the $5 undies table at the Boxing Day sales, a mid-season dip in media visibility, crowds and TV ratings is understandable, perhaps even inevitable.

But to vanish completely from the sporting radar as the A-League has done for long periods is a cause for deep concern.

Particularly when the lack of headlines and sound bites is reflected in the grandstands, where average A-League attendances have dropped to 11,101 — a decline of about 1,500 from last season and 2,400 from three years ago.

Cristiano Ronaldo has not spent as much time in front of the bathroom mirror as Australian football fans have spent attempting to solve the great dilemma: Why has a game with such healthy grass roots participation, passionate local club support and, since the 2006 World Cup, consistent global representation, struggled to build a stronger and more profitable national league?

Especially when the standard of the A-League, and drama of the games themselves, has steadily improved — as anyone following the epic recent performances of Sydney FC will attest.

Significant clues are contained in the long awaited book Whatever It Takes: The Inside Story of the FIFA Way by former Football Federation Australia head of corporate and public affairs, Bonita Mersiades.

Those who have tracked Mersiades' path from World Cup bid insider to passionate anti-corruption campaign will anticipate a compelling and intricately detailed account of Australia's deeply flawed attempt to host the 2022 World Cup and FIFA's dark machinations.

Mersiades has not disappointed. Her personal story of expert engagement with the bid team, gradual disillusionment and, upon her sacking, relentless attempts to expose corruption across FIFA is an entertaining, enlightening and also somewhat depressing tale.

In Mersiades' case, it also exposes the lengths both FIFA and the FFA took to discredit and ostracise those who dared expose their murkiest dealings, and the hefty price a whistleblower can pay.

Mersiades' book tells of relentless attempts to expose corruption across FIFA. ( ABC News: Niall Lenihan )

In the seven years since Australia's tainted bid gained just one vote, many of the details explored have been laid bare by Mersiades and others.

The millions spent on shady foreign consultants with dubious connections and unknown motives; the expensive trinkets given to FIFA officials; the enormous "development grants" awarded to influence voting; the two sets of bid accounts keep secretly by the FFA — one for internal use, the other to justify the $45 million of taxpayer money to government officials.

And so it went.

The most remarkable part of Mersiades' account is the personal dealings between those in the FFA's chain of command from then chairman Frank Lowy through to his three handpicked foreign consultants, FFA chief executive Ben Buckley and, until her sacking in late 2009, Mersiades and those whose votes or influence they sought.

There is arrogance, hubris, double-dealing and an addiction to privilege and wealth — encapsulated by the red-faced rage of FFA consultant Peter Hargitay when he is dropped at the rear entrance of a five star hotel and deprived of a glad-handing stroll through the swish lobby.

Mersiades details the full engagement of Lowy in every element of the bid.

This makes a mockery of Lowy's attempted legacy restoration in the ABC documentary Played in which he cast himself as the naive bidder blindsided by nasty FIFA politics.

Beyond the dirtiest FIFA deal-making, Mersiades explains her greatest source of disillusionment: "It's because we (Australia) played the game the FIFA way. We were diminished. My country, and the game I love."

No doubt, those eager to forget the failed bid will wonder what good even the most detailed account can have now.

The obvious answer for a country bidding for the 2023 Women's World Cup: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

As significantly, football in Australia was not just diminished spiritually by the World Cup bid.

As Mersiades reveals, the amount of money, government goodwill and executive hours concentrated on a task she and others were told by FIFA insiders was futile long before the vote took place left the local game neglected.

Even after losing so abjectly, Lowy devoted time and resources to "Project Platinum" in which he hired spooks and various international men of mystery to gather dirt on the Qatar bidders in the hope of having the 2022 World Cup removed from them.

Such intrigue might appeal to fans of James Bond movies. But not so much to fans of Gold Coast United or Northern Fury who were going belly-up while Lowy was again being outwitted by FIFA, whose report on the bid process shovelled dirt on Australia while clearing Qatar and Russia.

As well as Australian football's stagnation, Whatever It Takes helps explain, indirectly, the resignation of national coach Ange Postecoglou.

The constant distractions, Machiavellian politics and subsequent failure to drive growth in Australian football left an environment unsuitable for someone hoping to use the Socceroos to elevate the game as a whole.

Coincidentally — or possibly not — the FFA announced the appointment of Postecoglou's replacement Bert van Marwijk on the same day Whatever It Takes had its international launch in London.

Lowy and a few others will hope this damning book doesn't fly off shelves in the malls he recently sold for $32 billion.

No doubt FFA's eager cheerleaders will view Mersiades' attempt to shine a light on the game as more "football bashing" and "negativity".

It is this failure to learn from the past and to go forward with wisdom and passion that helps explain why Australian football is still struggling to fulfil its vast potential.