Women's football superstar Sam Kerr charged with 'racial harassment' of a police officer

Chelsea footballer and Matildas captain Sam Kerr is facing charges of racially aggravated harassment against a London police officer. The incident in question occurred during a response to a dispute over a taxi fare in Twickenham, south-west London, on January 30, 2023.

Appearing in Kingston Crown Court via video link, the 30-year-old Kerr entered a not guilty plea to the charge. The accusation alleges the use of insulting, threatening, or abusive language causing distress to the officer, as reported by The Guardian. The trial, expected to take place in February of the following year, will involve testimony from two police officers and is anticipated to span four days.

A statement from the Metropolitan police confirmed Kerr's charge under Section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986, specifying that it pertains to an incident involving a police officer during the aforementioned taxi fare dispute.

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Despite her legal challenges, Kerr recently extended her contract with Chelsea, the reigning champions of the Women's Super League. However, she will miss the remainder of the current season due to an anterior cruciate ligament injury suffered during a mid-season training camp in Morocco, as reported by TalkSport.

According to the Guardian, Football Australia acknowledged the legal proceedings involving Kerr but refrained from further comment due to the ongoing nature of the case. Kerr, a prominent figure in Australian sports, captained the Matildas during their remarkable journey to the semi-finals of the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand the previous year.

The latest legal dispute is a significant blemish on what has to this point been a remarkable career. She has been named the Golden Boot winner seven times on three different continents, an award for the league’s top scorer. She has been voted the Most Valuable Player five times in three separate leagues and is the all-time leading goal-scorer for the Matildas. 

Born on September 10, 1993, in East Fremantle, Western Australia, Samantha "Sam" Kerr discovered a love for sports from a very young age. But it wasn’t football that initially caught her eye. Being a proud Western Australian, Australian Rules football was the game she first fell in love with, according to ABC. 

You could say she had little choice but to love the game though, as both her father Roger and older brother, Daniel Kerr (pictured), were professional Australian rules footballers. She played the sport until switching to association football at the age of 12, mostly due to gender restrictions. AFL’s loss, football’s gain.

Making the move to football, she excelled more or less straight away. At just 13, she was spotted by Perth Glory striker Bobby Despotovski who described her as an "exceptional" talent. Just two years later in 2009, she would be making her professional debut for Perth Glory in the Women’s A-League at just 15.

Her performances with Glory in 2009 were nothing short of exceptional and soon caught the attention of national team scouts. That same year, she made her debut for the Australian women's national team, the Matildas, marking the beginning of an illustrious international career.

Matildas' head coach Tom Sermanni told ABC in 2022 that even at 15 she had all the makings of a great. “She was so new to everything, she was so young, but even then, even at that age, she was up there with the best players and the best athletes in the team,” Sermanni said. “She had all the raw materials, but I don’t think she knew how good she was, or how good she could become.”

Kerr's impact on the international stage has been nothing short of remarkable. Her combination of speed, agility, and an uncanny ability to find the back of the net has made her a nightmare for opposing defenders. She has consistently displayed her prowess by scoring crucial goals in major tournaments and securing victories for her team.

In July 2017, Kerr left an indelible mark on the inaugural Tournament of Nations in the United States, emerging as the top goalscorer with a breathtaking hat-trick against Japan in Australia's 4-2 victory, followed by a crucial goal against Brazil, leading her team to claim the championship title. 

This remarkable feat kick-started an astonishing run of 11 goals in six games, elevating Kerr's total tally and solidifying her status as a prolific striker. She would go on to be named the 2017 AFC Women's Footballer of the Year.

While at the 2019 Women’s World Cup, Kerr scored four goals in the team's 4–1 win against Jamaica and was named Player of the Match. She is the first Australian footballer to score a hat-trick at a World Cup tournament. and the tenth footballer to score four goals.

At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Kerr scored a goal that was controversially disallowed, and Australia ultimately lost 1–0. In the bronze medal match against the United States, she scored a goal in a 4–3 defeat, to become the all-time top scorer for the Matildas, surpassing Lisa De Vanna, with 48 goals.

At club level, her career has been even more prestigious. After impressing at Perth Glory, winning the Players’ Player of the Year and Goal of the Year awards, in her debut year she was signed by the  Western New York Flash in 2014, with head coach Aaron Lines telling 'USA Today' that she could “become one of the best strikers in the world.”

Between 2014 and 2019, Kerr would move between three teams. the Glory back in Perth in 2014-15, and Sky Blue FC in New Jersey in 2015-17 and the Chicago Red Stars in 2018-19. During this time, she would top the goal-scoring ladder each year, becoming the first person to win the NWSL Golden Boot more than once, and became the all-time NWSL goalscorer, a record she still holds. She also won the inaugural NWSL Player of the Year award in 2019. 

The offers in Europe soon became hard to refuse for Kerr and she soon found herself in England’s Women’s Super League, playing for Chelsea. It was here that she would really cement herself as one of the all-time greats, playing against the best players in the world.

Since 2020 with Chelsea, she has won the FA WSL title four times, the FA Women’s Cup three times, and the FA Women’s League Cup twice. She has since racked up numerous Player of the Year, Team of the Year and Golden Boot awards. In fact, she is the first and only player to win a Golden Boot in three different competitions.

To date, Kerr has scored 82 goals in 100 Chelsea appearances across all competitions, and Kerr seems to be set on staying at the London with the now-29-year-old telling BBC Radio in March 2023: “Hopefully I stay here as long as I can and hopefully there's a lot more goals, and a lot more games, and we go from there,”

Beyond her on-field achievements, Sam Kerr's impact extends far beyond the football pitch. As a role model for young aspiring athletes, she has inspired a new generation of girls to dream big and pursue their passion for the game. Her dedication, professionalism, and infectious enthusiasm have made her a beloved figure in the world of women's football.

To seal her wider recognition, in 2022 Kerr would become the first female player to feature on the cover of the FIFA game series, appearing alongside Kylian Mbappé on  FIFA 23 Ultimate Edition.

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