Former Buckie Thistle and Elgin star pocketed cash for training courses

Press and Journal

07-05-2025

A former Elgin City and Highland League star has admitted to pocketing more than £10,000 he was given to provide non-existent football training courses and sponsorship.
Ceiran McLean, who once turned out for and won the Highland League title with Buckie Thistle, strung along his customers for more than a year with promises he could deliver bespoke packages after taking their cash.
At Elgin Sheriff Court today – on the first day of his scheduled trial – the 34-year-old admitted conning customers of his football training business. Ceiran McLean once played for Buckie Thistle.
The court did not hear the circumstances of McLean's crime, but was told that his illegal efforts stretched from June 15 2020 to August 11 2021.
Throughout that period, he admitted breaching a section of the Trading Regulations Act, which prevents businesses from conducting unfair commercial practices that are likely to influence the behaviour of the average consumer.
His own defence solicitor, Matthew O'Neill, said the sum he would pocket by doing so was more than £10,000.
Mr O'Neill, who was appearing on behalf of Aberdeen firm George Mathers & Co., said the former footballer was now attempting to pay that money back and asked for sentence to be deferred to allow him to do so.
He said: 'My understanding is that the amount obtained will amount to £10,686.66.
'The principal agents have engaged in conversations, significantly, with Mr McLean. I understand Mr McLean is currently in employment and has certainly proposed to the principal agents a plan that he has in relation to be able to return those funds.
'Mr McLean should be in funds to do that within three months.' 'There ought to be a punitive element'
Agreeing to defer sentence on the case, Sheriff Olga Pasportnikov advised McLean, of Inchbroom Avenue in Lossiemouth, to start saving money.
'Restitution is one thing, but there ought to be a punitive element,' she said, addressing McLean's solicitor.
The sheriff also called for background reports on McLean, as well as a restriction of liberty assessment, which, if he were sentenced to one, would limit the hours of the day during which he could leave his home.
McLean, who has a previous conviction from Elgin Sheriff Court, will now return to the dock in June.
In 2013, while he was still at Elgin City FC, he was sentenced to 12 months behind bars for his part in a horror smash on the A96 Nairn to Alves road, which left a trialist in a coma for two months.
McLean and another Elgin City player were racing each other in separate vehicles when the crash happened.
McLean also suffered broken legs, a broken pelvis, and a brain injury.