Chelsea striker Kerr was charged with harassment of a police officer in an incident in London final yr and faces trial in February 2025.
Australian soccer captain Sam Kerr has pleaded not responsible to racially aggravated harassment of a police officer in London greater than a yr in the past, however will face trial on the costs, prosecutors in the UK have mentioned.
The 30-year-old striker, who performs membership soccer for Chelsea in London, was charged with inflicting a police officer harassment, alarm or misery throughout an incident in Twickenham, southwest London, on January 30 final yr, in line with the Crown Prosecution Service.
“The charge relates to an incident involving a police officer who was responding to a complaint involving a taxi fare on 30 January 2023 in Twickenham,” the Metropolitan Police mentioned in a press release on Monday.
Kerr, one of many world’s most recognisable feminine footballers and a sporting idol in her house nation, was charged on January 21, nearly a yr after the incident was alleged to have occurred.
The Chelsea ahead, who on the day earlier than the incident scored a hat-trick in opposition to Liverpool within the FA Cup at Chelsea girls’s house floor Kingsmeadow, is because of seem in courtroom in February subsequent yr.
The 30-year-old pleaded not responsible by way of video hyperlink at Kingston Crown Courtroom on Monday, British media reported.
Kerr denied the cost at a plea and trial preparation listening to at Kingston upon Thames Crown Courtroom on Monday, the PA information company reported.
Chelsea haven’t commented on the reported incident.
Soccer Australia CEO James Johnson and girls’s nationwide staff coach Tony Gustavsson advised Australian media that they had solely been made conscious of the costs in opposition to Kerr on Tuesday morning.
Johnson mentioned he had despatched a message to Kerr to test in on her welfare however had not had a dialog together with her about it.
“We’re trying to get to the bottom of it. We have our own questions we would like to know,” Johnson mentioned throughout a press convention in Adelaide.
“There’s a course of that’s beneath manner and that course of must run its course.
“I don’t want to get into the allegations. They are serious allegations. At the same time, Sam has rights – natural justice rights, procedural rights – that she has to work her way through and we respect that.”
Gustavsson mentioned he couldn’t touch upon the costs and referred to an earlier assertion from Soccer Australia.
“The only thing I can comment on is my experience and interaction with Sam as a person and as a footballer,” he mentioned, “and I have only positive experience with that.”
In an earlier assertion issued after media experiences began rising from Britain, Soccer Australia (FA) mentioned it was conscious of the proceedings involving Kerr however was unable to touch upon the continuing authorized matter.
“Our focus remains on supporting all our players, both on and off the field,” FA mentioned in a press release. “We will continue to monitor the situation and provide support as appropriate.”
Kerr is at the moment sidelined after an anterior cruciate ligament harm throughout a warm-weather coaching camp with the Chelsea girls’s staff in Morocco in January.
Revered by Australian soccer followers, Kerr’s world superstar helped deliver the ladies’s sport into the mainstream and drive a significant enhance in company sponsorship for the nationwide Matildas staff, who reached the Girls’s World Cup semifinals on house soil final yr.
Kerr battled a calf harm that dominated her out of a lot of the motion however returned later within the match and scored a surprise objective within the semifinal in opposition to England.
Final Could, she led the Australian delegation as flag-bearer at King Charles’s coronation at Westminster Abbey.
She is the nation’s all-time main scorer in worldwide soccer with 69 targets from 128 video games. The ahead has scored 58 targets for Chelsea within the WSL since 2020.