Kris Boyd (born 18 August 1983) is a Scottish former professional footballer who played as a forward, currently working as a sports pundit.

He signed for Turkish club Eskişehirspor in 2011, but terminated his contract after five months and moved to the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer in January 2012.

[6] He was let go, and became a striker when he joined the youth development program at Kilmarnock, ten miles from his home village,[7] at the age of 12.

[8] Boyd signed a senior contract with Kilmarnock at the age of sixteen on 25 August 1999,[1] and made his debut for the club as a substitute on the last day of the 2000–01 season against Celtic.

[9] He was given his chance to stake a place in the team the following season with the departures of Ally McCoist (who finished his career the day of Boyd's debut)[10] and Christophe Cocard,[11] scoring four goals in total.

[12] Boyd started the 2002–03 season, in "impressive" form and won the SPL Young Player of the Month award for August.

[23][24] After scoring a penalty against Motherwell in January 2007, Boyd was involved in controversy when he held up six fingers, reportedly in a show of solidarity for former club captain Barry Ferguson (who wore the number six shirt), who had been stripped of his position and dropped from the team following a dispute with Paul Le Guen.

[26] The 2007–08 season saw Boyd score his 50th and 51st goals in all competitions for Rangers in a League Cup match against East Fife on 26 September 2007, 627 days after his debut.

[27] Boyd won the first trophy of his career on 16 March 2008 when Rangers defeated Dundee United to win the 2008 League Cup.

Having also been linked to Lazio and sporting director Igli Tare being quoted as stating his admiration for the player, club president Claudio Lotito responded by claiming he did not know who Boyd was.

[42] Boyd scored in a 2–1 defeat against Leeds United on 16 October 2010,[43] which was Gordon Strachan's final game in charge of the club.

[46] Boyd achieved his 200th club career goal on 1 February 2011, in scoring the first in Middlesbrough's 2–0 home victory over Scunthorpe by latching onto a long ball from Seb Hines before lobbing the goalkeeper.

[49] Boyd terminated his contract on 19 December 2011 and started legal proceedings against Eskişehirspor claiming he had never been paid during his stay at the club.

[55] Eight days later, Boyd made his league debut in their season opener, where he scored Timbers' second goal of a 3–1 victory against Philadelphia Union.

[60][61] He made his first competitive appearance of his second spell at Ibrox on 5 August 2014; playing in Rangers' 2–1 win over Hibernian in the first round of the Challenge Cup.

A fortnight later, Boyd scored his first goals of the season; netting a hat-trick in an 8–1 rout of Clyde in the second round of the Challenge Cup.

[62] Boyd was released by Rangers at the end of the season, along with several other players, after the club failed to gain promotion to the Scottish Premiership.

[65] He scored the fastest goal in Scottish Premiership history after just 10 seconds on 28 January 2016, in a 3–2 home defeat of Ross County.

[66] Boyd scored his 200th top flight league goal, in a 2–1 home defeat to Motherwell on 6 March 2017,[67] becoming the fifth post-war player to reach that milestone.

His decision came after Burley had left Boyd on the substitute bench in a 0–0 World Cup qualifying match against Norway, opting to bring on debutant Chris Iwelumo instead.

[82] He was called up to the Scotland squad to play against the Czech Republic in a friendly on 3 March, and he received his sixteenth cap in the second half of the game.

He scored an average of two goals for every three games when he arrived at Rangers; many of which came from the substitute bench, making his goals-to-games ratio even more impressive.

[87] 16 months later, the Kris Boyd Charity was established with the aim of assisting persons with mental health problems and to encourage discussion of the issues causing them.