Keelan Williams retires at 22 after heart condition ends playing career

Keelan Williams has retired from football at the age of 22. The younger brother of Wales international Neco Williams told BBC Sport that a cardiac condition left him no choice but to step away from the game.

The problem was found when he was 15. He had gone for a routine check-up before travelling abroad with a Wales Under-16s camp. He was referred to Broadgreen Hospital in Liverpool, where doctors found a bicuspid aortic valve with a slight leak. A bicuspid aortic valve is a condition present from birth in which the valve has two flaps instead of three. The valve controls how blood leaves the heart. Williams had no symptoms when the leak was discovered.

He had been in football since he was small. He started at Cefn United, then joined a Liverpool satellite academy at six and signed terms with Liverpool at eight. He stayed in Liverpool's system until he was 16, when he moved to Burnley. He played for Welsh youth teams up to under-19 level. In January 2024, aged 20, he joined Bala Town, and he later played as a defender for Denbigh Town.

Denbigh Town announced his retirement in October, saying it was due to his ongoing cardiac condition and describing him as a talented player and a remarkable person. The club said he had stepped away after 17 years in the game.

The medical road was long. In January 2025 he had valve-sparing aortic root replacement surgery, an operation on the base of the aorta, the main artery leaving the heart, that aims to keep the original valve working. He also received a dual-chamber pacemaker, a small device that sends electrical signals to keep the heartbeat steady. Complications followed. He was admitted to intensive care and treated for sepsis, a serious blood infection, along with a collapsed lung and respiratory failure, a condition where the lungs cannot supply enough oxygen. He spent 11 days in intensive care.

In September 2025 he had a second operation, which he hoped would let him keep playing. It did not. Across the two procedures he had two open-heart surgeries and two pacemaker implants.

Williams has since spoken publicly about his heart and has issued a heart warning. His story is a reminder that a condition found during a routine check can change a young person's life long after the first diagnosis. For a player who had spent most of his life chasing a career in the game, the end came at 22, years earlier than he or anyone around him had planned.