Expansion club Melbourne Heart (now City) had been in talks to secure the striker's signature ahead of their debut season, before the deal ultimately fell through.
Viduka, then 34, was a free agent following Newcastle United's relegation from the Premier League, and returned to Australia with a hope to help improve the state of the game.
That view, however, was one not shared by the A-League newcomers, who instead saw the ex-Leeds star as the perfect on-pitch attraction for the upcoming 2010-11 season.
"They wanted me to keep playing but I didn't want to play," Viduka told The World Game's Lucy Zelic.
"I had an offer to go to Fulham for a couple of years and, basically, the reason why I stopped playing was because I knew I couldn't do it anymore.
"I knew that I couldn't do what I wanted to do. That's the catch-22 when you get older as a player.
"You've got the experience, you're not as nervous anymore, you've got that cleverness about your play, you don't waste energy where you shouldn't.
"But then the body starts to give way after a while and, during my last couple of seasons at Newcastle, I was injured for a long time and that was the worst thing.
"But with Heart, they offered me to play again and I didn't want to play.
"I got a lot of people calling me up and saying, 'do you want to come to my dinner so we can get more supporters' and things like that.
"But nobody ever asked me, 'Dukes, what do you think of our youngsters? How are we gonna get our youngsters to the highest level?'
"Or, 'what do you think of the A-League' - they didn't ask for any input.
"And that was a conversation that was happening with a lot of ex-Socceroos."
Such a sour end to negotiations has since seen Viduka build a life away from football with his family in Croatia, with the European lifestyle outweighing any chance of a return to Australia.
