Details of the court move were made public in the Edinburgh Gazette which said the estate of Dianbobo Balde was sequestrated on September 7 at Hamilton Sheriff court.

Bryan Jackson of accountants PKF appointed by the court to deal with the estate’s debts and creditors, said Balde was sequestrated for £7,904 after a petition by a creditor.

Details were not given but the debt is thought to relate to legal fees.

Mr Jackson said: “The non-payment of this sum and the failure to defend the action may be the result of a misunderstanding or it may also be because Mr Balde is unaware of the debt.

“However, it has been more than a year since the debt was incurred and it was initially raised in court over four months ago.”

Mr Jackson went on: “In these circumstances the usual course of action is to collect the funds by negotiation with the debtor or, if that fails, through arrestment of bank accounts or sequestration of assets.

“In any event I will be pursuing this debt on behalf of the creditors and hope that Mr Balde will be alerted to this situation and act accordingly.”

He said: “Technically he has been bankrupted, but he has allowed that to happen.

“Whether he really is bankrupt is a different issue but in terms of the legalities, I have been appointed his trustee by the court.”

French-born Balde, 34, signed for Celtic in 2001, and was speculated to be earning around £30,000 a week.

But in the latter part of his career he only made a handful of appearances after a well-documented fallout with the club.

He left Celtic at the end of his contract this summer and is now a free agent.

His address was said by the Edinburgh Gazette to be in Bothwell, Lanarkshire but Mr Jackson said he did not know where he was at present.