Former Netherlands international Quincy Promes has been sentenced to six years in prison for drug trafficking.

Promes, who has played for Ajax and Sevilla in his career and is currently employed by Russian side Spartak Moscow, did not attend court hearings in Amsterdam so was sentenced in absentia.

The 32-year-old’s lawyers told Dutch newspaper AD Promes that the sentence would be appealed as Promes denies the charges of importing, exporting, transporting and possessing the drugs.

Prosecutors last month sought a nine-year sentence for Promes, for his involvement in the smuggling of 1,360kg of cocaine through the port of Antwerp, Belgium, to the Netherlands in two shipments in 2020.

The court said phone taps had shown that Promes had been directly involved with the shipments of the drugs, hidden in shipments of salt from Brazil, and their further transport from the port.

In another Dutch court case, the 32-year-old former Ajax Amsterdam and Sevilla forward was last year sentenced in absentia to 18 months in jail for assault, in connection with a fight in 2020 in which he stabbed a cousin in the knee.

Promes has filed an appeal against that sentence as well.

Additional reporting by Reuters.