Only hours earlier, the former Fulham defender had been locked up in a police cell after being arrested with his brother, Carlos, 26, during an early morning drugs raid at their mother’s home in Birmingham.

In a bizarre turn of events, the 27-year-old Knight was marched out of the house in Erdington in handcuffs by police bearing firearms, and accompanied by sniffer dogs, after the raid, which took place at 5.30am.

Knight’s mother Sandra, 47, was not at home at the time and was not arrested. It is believed that crack cocaine and heroin were seized.