A director of the Scottish Women’s Premier League (SWPL) has been found guilty of defrauding her landlord with an elaborate scam.

Zola McGoldrick (main picture, inset), 50, also known as Zola Affley, rented Roderick Glen’s three-bedroom flat but failed pay £28,438 between September 2018 and May 2020 after claiming she had been caught up in an international money laundering scheme.

She told her landlord several of her bank accounts had been frozen and forged letters from RBS, Lloyds and HMRC in an attempt to convince him.

McGoldrick denied the allegations during a two-day trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court and was released on bail until sentencing next month, reports the Edinburgh Evening News.

Glen told the court that he and his wife owned the ground floor flat in Marchmont (main image) and agreed to rent out the property for £1,500 per month.

McGoldrick and her family moved in before any deposit was paid and when the money failed to arrive in his account, he said the Australian national gave him “a complicated explanation”.

Conned

However, he allowed McGoldrick to stay at the property in the hope he would eventually receive the rent payments, but no cash was ever handed over. The landlord then realised he had been conned and all the documents from the two banks and HMRC were fakes after checking up on McGoldrick online.

He told the court he discovered she had been taken to a housing tribunal by her previous landlady for not paying rent. McGoldrick was declared bankrupt in March 2020 and was eventually evicted from the property.

The SWPL director did not give evidence but two short clips from her police interview were played to the court in which she said she “did not deliberately” try to defraud the landlord.

She has since resigned from her position at the football league.

Pic credits: Streetview/Twitter/Scottish Football League‍