Andy Cole: Life, Career, Kidney Transplant, and Net Worth

Ask a certain kind of football fan to name the player who made Manchester United’s 1999 Treble feel inevitable, and Andy Cole’s name is never far away. The same man spent two years on dialysis, received a kidney from his nephew in 2017, then trained in Denmark as a metacognitive therapist — and that second act is the part of his story he now documents most openly.

Born: 15 October 1971, Nottingham · Position: Striker · Premier League goals: 187 · Man Utd transfer (1995): £6m plus Keith Gillespie · England caps: 15

Andy Cole at a glance

Eight rows, one pattern: the official record moves from goal tallies to advocacy and recovery.

The trade-off: the numbers capture the footballer; they say nothing about the decade after 2015.

What has happened to Andy Cole?

Two portraits of Andy Cole exist in the public record. The first is the striker who scored relentlessly for Newcastle United and Manchester United; the second is the man who survived kidney failure, retrained as a therapist, and now talks about mental health more than trophies.

What does Andy Cole do now?

• Public bio: works in support of people with mental-health challenges.
• Trained in Denmark as a metacognitive therapist, per his Instagram bio.
• Active with Kidney Research UK, including the Andy Cole Fund launched in 2020.

Cole’s current work is tied to his own recovery. Sky Sports (sports broadcaster) reported that he has spoken about the mental-health toll of isolation during and after his illness.

His Instagram bio frames the work directly: he has supported people with mental-health challenges and trained in Denmark to become a metacognitive therapist for disabled people.

Where does Andy Cole live now?

• Current town or city of residence: not publicly confirmed.
• Documented base of activity: charity work and mental-health advocacy in the UK.

Cole has not volunteered a home address in the interviews reviewed for this profile. What is documented is where he directs his time: the Andy Cole Fund, transplant research and public speaking about recovery.

The implication: Cole’s public life is no longer defined by where he lives or what he won, but by what he survived and how he uses the platform.

Did Andy Cole have a kidney transplant?

Yes, and the sequence is firmly on the record. Cole’s kidneys failed in 2015 after he fell ill during or after a trip to Vietnam (ITV News (UK broadcaster)). He then spent two years on dialysis before a transplant in April 2017 (ITV News (UK broadcaster)).

The personal details are precise. His nephew was the donor, and his own kidney function had fallen to 7% before the operation, according to Kidney Research UK (kidney charity).

What is life expectancy after a kidney transplant?

• General statistics vary by age, donor type and underlying health; there is no single answer.
• Kidney Research UK funds research into long-term transplant outcomes and patient wellbeing.

The honest answer is that no biography can supply a personal prognosis. Survival depends on age, donor type, underlying condition and follow-up care; the people qualified to speak to that are the renal team treating the individual.

What the charity’s own pages make clear: its Andy Cole Fund exists to improve those numbers (Kidney Research UK, kidney charity).

What this means: Cole’s recovery is not a one-off miracle story. He has turned it into a public health message, and that message is now part of his job.

How much did Man U pay for Andy Cole?

Manchester United signed Cole from Newcastle United in January 1995 for £6 million plus Keith Gillespie (BBC News, public broadcaster) — a transfer-record package at the time and a clear statement from Alex Ferguson.

How good was Andrew Cole?

• 34 league goals in 1993-94 and the Premier League Golden Boot (Speakers Associates, speaker agency).
• 187 career Premier League goals.
• Five Premier League titles, two FA Cups and the 1999 Champions League.

The numbers explain the deal. Cole won the Golden Boot as a 22-year-old, and that single season convinced Ferguson he was worth a record outlay.

The trophy list came after: five Premier League titles, two FA Cups and the 1999 Champions League, with the latter built around the Cole-Yorke partnership (Manchester United, official club site).

What age did Andy Cole retire?

• Year of retirement: 2008.
• Age at retirement: 37.

By the time Cole retired in 2008, aged 37, his 187 Premier League goals were already part of the record books (Sky Sports, sports broadcaster).

The implication: the transfer that once drew raised eyebrows became the bedrock of United’s most decorated era.

Why did Teddy Sheringham not like Andy Cole?

The friction between Cole and Teddy Sheringham is one of the most retold stories of Manchester United’s late-1990s dressing room. The structural cause was simple: in the 1998-99 Treble season, Cole, Sheringham, Dwight Yorke and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer were all competing for two striker places (Manchester United, official club site).

The relationship is documented through later interviews and autobiographies, though no single official explanation exists. Neither man has suggested the tension ever hurt United’s results; the public record treats it as professional rivalry, not a feud.

The result: the squad’s internal friction became part of the Treble’s folklore rather than its undoing.

Who is Andy Cole’s wife?

Cole is married to Fabiana Cole, and the couple have kept family life largely out of the tabloids. Public reports describe four children, including Devante Cole, who followed his father into professional football (The Mirror (UK newspaper)).

How many children does Andy Cole have?

• Commonly reported as four in total.
• Son Devante is the best known: a professional footballer.

The exact details are not confirmed in any official record; interviews over the years have described the family differently.

The pattern: Cole has protected his private life more successfully than most former England regulars, which is why the public record here stays thin.

What is Andy Cole’s net worth?

There is no verified answer. Online estimates range widely because Cole has never published financial accounts and no official disclosure exists.

• Income sources: football contracts, endorsements, post-retirement speaking and charity work.
• Public disclosures: none beyond reporting on his £250,000 pledge to kidney research.

The one large figure attached to Cole’s money in the public record is not a salary but a gesture: he pledged £250,000 of his own cash to kidney research through the Andy Cole Fund (Speakers Associates, speaker agency).

The implication: treat every precise net-worth figure as an estimate, and measure his post-football wealth by the fund he chose to back.

Timeline: from Nottingham to a second act

Reading the dates in order, the pattern is stark: two decades of goals, then more than a decade of recovery and rebuilding.

• 15 October 1971 — born in Nottingham, England (Speakers Associates, speaker agency).
• 1993-94 — wins the Premier League Golden Boot with Newcastle United after 34 league goals (Speakers Associates, speaker agency).
• January 1995 — transfers to Manchester United for £6m plus Keith Gillespie (BBC News, public broadcaster).
• 1995-96 to 2000-01 — wins five Premier League titles (Manchester United (official club site)).
• 1998-99 — part of the Treble-winning season, including the Champions League (Manchester United, official club site).
• 2008 — retires at 37 (Sky Sports, sports broadcaster).
• 15 April 2014 — a man is jailed for racially abusing Cole; reports note his Kick It Out work (BBC News, public broadcaster).
• 2015 — kidney failure after an illness linked to a Vietnam trip (ITV News, UK broadcaster).
• April 2017 — kidney transplant; his nephew is the donor (Kidney Research UK, kidney charity).
• 2018-2020 — named Kidney Research UK ambassador; launches the Andy Cole Fund with a £250,000 pledge (Kidney Research UK, kidney charity).
• Current — public bio describes him as a metacognitive therapist trained in Denmark (Instagram bio, self-described).

The takeaway: the first half of the timeline built the fame; the second half built something more durable.

Confirmed facts and what’s unclear

The reason the split matters: the confirmed list is long enough to trust, and the unclear list shows how much of Cole’s life he has chosen to keep private.

In his own words

“There’s no hell like it.”

Andy Cole, describing the period around his kidney failure, quoted by The Mirror (UK newspaper)

“I have worked in support of people with challenges to their mental health. I trained in Denmark to become a metacognitive therapist … for disabled people.”

Andy Cole, verified Instagram bio

“Mr Cole, 42, is heavily involved with the Kick It Out campaign, which aims to stamp out racist abuse from the stands and in the dressing room.”

BBC News (public broadcaster), from its 2014 report on a racial-abuse conviction

The consistent thread across all three: Cole keeps returning to the period after football, not the trophies.

Cole’s story is usually told in two halves — the goals, then the illness. The more accurate version is one continuous line: a striker who used the platform football gave him to fund transplant research, retrain as a therapist, and talk openly about the isolation that followed. For anyone facing a kidney diagnosis or a post-career identity crisis, the example is specific: name the problem, take the treatment that exists, and build a new role before the old one finishes. For fans, the choice is simpler — remember the 1999 Treble, but judge the man on what he did after it.

Frequently asked questions