Leigh Griffiths was due to appear on petition at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Thursday March 21, but was unusually allowed to be absent when the case against him called. He is facing two charges on indictment of conspiracy and concerned in a fraudulent scheme. The report says the case is understood to relate to allegations of match-fixing.
What the court report says
The Daily Record report frames this as a criminal case, not a football controversy dressed up as one. It says the former Celtic and Hibernian striker is facing allegations of conspiracy and being concerned in a fraudulent scheme, with the match-fixing element understood from the wider context of the case.
That distinction matters because the formal charges are the ones being advanced in court. At the same time, the allegation behind them is still described as match-fixing, so both parts of the story need to be kept in view rather than blurred together.
Griffiths is not facing this alone. He is expected to stand trial alongside three other professional footballers, Marc McNulty, Paul McGowan and Keaghan Jacobs, while a fifth accused, Conan McDiarmid, also appeared in the dock to face the same allegations in March.
The scale of the case is what gives Thursday's hearing its weight. Griffiths won 22 Scotland caps and the report places him in the context of a 20-year career, which makes the allegations harder to file away as a minor off-field issue.
Why the hearing stands out
The unusual part of this stage is not just that the case called in Edinburgh, but that Griffiths was allowed to stay away while it did. That is a notable procedural detail, especially in a case being presented with five named footballers now linked to the same allegations.
The report does not say more than that, and it should not be stretched beyond what is there. What it does show is a case moving forward in public, with a former Scotland international, two charges on indictment and a group of co-accused all now tied to the same proceedings.
For Griffiths, the next key step is the trial he is expected to face with the others. Until then, the immediate story is the court process itself, and the fact that Edinburgh Sheriff Court has now called the case with the former striker absent.
Written by Sam Whitfield with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
