THREE West Cork transplant recipients - including the team manager who was given just two months to live in 2007 - will return from representing Ireland at the Transplant Football World Cup in Frankfurt this weekend.

The players were part of a Transport Sport Ireland team of ten at the tournament where 15 national teams of organ transplant recipients from across the world celebrated the gift of life, athletic resilience, and the power of organ donation.

The team includes manager Mike Keohane from Rosscarbery, Val Weblin from Leap and Patrick O’Driscoll from Aghiohill.

Mike was told in 2007 that he had just two months to live without a transplant. Eleven days later, he received the call that changed his life, that a donor was available and he remains well and active 17 years later.

Val, who spoke to The Southern Star last year after attending the World Transplant Games, spent two years in a wheelchair and depended on oxygen every day before receiving a double lung transplant in 2000. “The day the call came about the transplant changed my life and I’ve never looked back,’ he recalls.

Val went on to marry his wife Julie and become a father to Thomas. He subsequently received another transplant in 2018, this time of a kidney, and returned to football. “It truly is the gift of life,’ he said.

Transplant Sport Ireland (TSI) is the national governing body for transplant sport in Ireland and is run by volunteers, including transplant recipients themselves.

Irish transplant athletes have competed successfully at World, European and British transplant games, winning numerous gold, silver and bronze medals while using sport to demonstrate what can be achieved following transplantation.

TSI brings together transplant recipients and people receiving dialysis, along with families, supporters and volunteers, and encourages members to participate in sport and physical activity at all levels – from social training and meet-up days to international competition.

A central purpose of the organisation is to raise awareness of organ donation and honour organ donors and donor families.