Skin and eyes were yellow
Ex-football star narrowly escapes death
Updated on September 23, 2025 – 9:27 a.m.Reading time: 1 min.
A former English international owes his life to a liver transplant. Only he asks people to become organ donors.
Kieron Dyer only lives thanks to a liver transplant. The English ex-international (33 caps) has now publicly called on to donate organs. Without the intervention in which he received a donor organ, he would “no longer be here today,” he said in an interview with the BBC.
In 2019, he found a rare liver disease, primarily sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), which causes chronic inflammation and scarring of the bile ducts. Four years later, he had to undergo a transplant. The disease left significant traces: his skin and eyes turned yellow. “Sometimes I looked like Bart Simpson, it was worrying,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be here without a donor today, so I will always be grateful. It was a question of life and death,” said Dyer two years after the operation. The family of his donor initially hesitated. Only a TV show about organ donation changed thinking. “My donor said: ‘If I die, you can have all my organs.'”
Dyer, who used to play for teams such as Ipswich Town, Newcastle United and West Ham United, is now an assistant to the English fourth division club FC Chesterfield. He now wants to use his own story to draw attention to organ donations. He himself is on the list as a donor. “The more people are donors, the greater the chance that people – including children – can live on.”