Drug-dealing shame of former footballer

A FORMER Hearts footballer is facing jail after running a £37,500 cocaine-dealing operation.

Paul MacDonald, 29, was arrested by officers who discovered drugs and manufacturing equipment at a two-bedroom flat in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, following a tip-off.

The ex-midfielder’s DNA was found on the buttons of a set of scales and his fingerprints were lifted from bags containing cocaine.

MacDonald, who also played for Clyde and represented Scotland at youth level, claimed he had visited the flat six months earlier to carry out an intruder alarm survey for the landlord. While he was there, a set of scales and empty bags had fallen out of a boiler cupboard and he had picked them up, he said.

A jury at Hamilton Sheriff Court took just an hour to find him guilty of being concerned in the supply of cocaine between March 2014 and March 2015 by a majority verdict.

He has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced next month.

MacDonald, of East Kilbride, who formed a security alarm firm after quitting the game in 2010, told the court: ‘I was only in this flat once and later the police arrived at my door at 8 o’clock in the morning and said I was being arrested for the misuse of drugs. I had no idea what they were talking about.’

A neighbour had seen a man resembling MacDonald frequenting the property, the trial heard.

Defence lawyer Diarmid Bruce said: ‘Paul MacDonald had an entirely legitimate reason to be in that flat and a legitimate explanation why his prints and DNA were found there.’