A former All White who drunkenly got into the bed of a stranger and touched her bottom has avoided a jail sentence for sexual assault in England but been put on a sex offender register.

Chris Killen, 35, who played 48 games for the national soccer side, was given a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to do 200 hours' community service when he appeared in Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday (local time), the Press Association reports.

He had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to an offence of sexual assault in the early morning of September 17, 2016.

The ex-Manchester City and Glasgow Celtic player, and father of two, had been out with a friend in Manchester drinking for eight hours before getting a taxi to a property where a group of women were sleeping after a party.

He went into a bedroom and got under the covers next to a woman and felt her bottom over her underwear, the court was told.

His lawyer Lisa Judge said Killen acknowledged, in the cold light of day when sober, the effects this would have.

"The apology is a full and frank one," she said.

Judge Maurice Greene said this woman, who was drunk and asleep, was particularly vulnerable.

"She was in this house where she could expect to feel safe in the room in which she was sleeping."

He ordered Killen to sign the Sex Offenders Register for the next 10 years.