Meteoric rise and freefall of £60,000-a-week football star

The gifted £60,000-a-week winger, idolised by thousands of adoring fans, shared a £1.5m mansion with his girlfriend Stacey Flounders, who was expecting the couple’s first child.

But just three weeks after the birth of his daughter, Johnson arranged to meet a star-struck 15-year-old girl – having first groomed the teenager for several weeks while his girlfriend was heavily pregnant.

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On New Year’s Eve, the Sunderland midfielder began communicating with the teenage fan via social media and, even though she told him her age on that first night, the pair exchanged more than 800 texts, as well as talking on What’s App and Facebook over the next month.

The girl, who admitted to having a huge crush on the star, briefly met up with him and he gave her a Sunderland shirt.

But Johnson persisted and arranged a second meeting on January 30 last year, where he kissed the underage girl in his black Range Rover parked in a County Durham car park.

Arrogant Johnson, who according to Miss Flounders had been unfaithful with “quite a few women,” was about to see his privileged world come crashing down.

The girl told friends about her “relationship” with the England international and rumours spread like wildfire. Taunted on social media, the tearful girl finally broke down and her father called in the police.

On March 2, a month after his encounter with the girl in a takeaway car park, detectives arrived on the sweeping gravel drive of Johnson’s six-bedroom home at Castle Eden, in County Durham, and arrested the 27-year-old.

Within hours, Johnson found himself at the centre of an international media spotlight far in excess of anything he could have expected in his glittering playing career.

He was eventually charged with three counts of sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of grooming and the player, who had graced the likes of Wembley, the Etihad Stadium and the Stadium of Light, found himself in the less familiar surroundings of Peterlee Magistrates’ Court.

It was a spectacular fall for a young man who had shot to stardom as a teenager.

Born in Sunderland and raised in Easington, Adam Johnson made his name at Middlesbrough where he made his debut in a Uefa Cup game against Sporting Lisbon in 2005 aged just 17.

The highly-rated youngster played 120 times for the Teessiders, before a £7m move to big-spending Manchester City.

Johnson was part of the City squad which won the Premier League title in 2011-12, playing 97 times for the Blues during his three seasons in Manchester when he was also called up to the England squad, winning the first of his 12 caps.

The high-flying Johnson rented Cristiano Ronaldo’s former house near the Cheshire village of Alderley Edge, an exclusive enclave favoured by the football elite, where he developed a reputation for enjoying the party life and dated glamour model Sophie Reade.

In August 2012, the millionaire player returned to his native North-East when he signed for Sunderland in a £10m deal.

About a year before his return home, Johnson began dating Hartlepool-born Miss Flounders, then aged 21, and the couple shared the trappings of the footballing highlife, flash cars, holidays in Dubai and a mansion, set in its own wooded grounds.

Johnson told his trial that the relationship had been going through a rough period before he arranged the rendezvous with the teenager. At first, Miss Flounders, who was 25 at the time of Johnson’s arrest, stood by her partner, appearing alongside him at court and posting photographs on social media showing the player as a doting father.

As Johnson stood in the dock at Bradford Crown Court, she confirmed their relationships was over.

Adam Johnson's former girlfriend, Stacey Flounders

Johnson told the trial: “I had not been a good person to her or our daughter.”

In June, he appeared at Durham Crown Court and pleaded not guilty to all charges, even though during police interviews he had admitted kissing the youngster and grooming her over several months.

After being initially suspended by his club, Johnson was allowed to return to play for Sunderland in the closing games of last season as the Black Cats’ fought to avoid relegation.

Adam Johnson scores for Sunderland in September 2015

Even though the trial heard the club had been made aware of the content of his police interviews in May, Johnson was allowed to continue playing this season. But he has been dogged by terrace chants and online ridicule since the allegations came to light and his form on the field dipped, other than a goal in the victory over arch rivals Newcastle United earlier this season.

But on the first day of the court hearing, he changed his plea and admitted two charges – that of kissing and grooming a girl he knew to be under 16, enough to require him to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register.

He was immediately sacked by the club and dumped by sponsors Adidas, while Miss Flounders revealed while giving evidence that she had also finished with him, although they hoped to remain friends.

Now, having pleaded guilty to two counts and having been convicted by the jury of a third, he is facing the very real prospect of jail.

Almost a year to the day since he was arrested, Adam Johnson’s fall from grace is complete.