Chelsea striker and Matildas captain Sam Kerr is about to face trial after being charged with racially aggravated harassment of a London police officer.
The 30-year-old Australia worldwide pleaded not responsible to the offence at a courtroom listening to on Monday, the Crown Prosecution Service stated.
Kerr is scheduled to look at Wimbledon Magistrates Courtroom on 1 February 2025.
It follows an alleged incident in January 2023.
”The cost pertains to an incident involving a police officer who was responding to a grievance involving a taxi fare on 30 January 2023 in Twickenham,” a Metropolitan Police spokesperson stated.
She was charged on 21 January ”with a racially aggravated offence underneath Part 4A [of the] Public Order Act 1986”, they added.
Nevertheless Kerr denied the cost at a plea and trial preparation listening to at Kingston upon Thames Crown Courtroom on Monday.
The striker is at the moment sidelined after struggling an anterior cruciate ligament damage on the membership’s heat climate coaching camp in Morocco in January.
She has scored 99 objectives in 128 matches since becoming a member of Chelsea in 2019, and is her nation’s all-time document goalscorer with 64 objectives in 125 video games.
Chatting with media in Adelaide on Tuesday, Soccer Australia chief govt James Johnson stated the federation had realized of the ”very critical allegations” within the information that morning.
”There is no such thing as a place for racism in our sport,” he stated.
”On the similar time Sam has rights, pure justice rights, procedural rights that she has to work by way of and we are going to respect that.”
Requested if Kerr – arguably Australia’s greatest sports activities star – needs to be stood down because the nationwide workforce’s captain till the courtroom case has performed out, Mr Johnson stated the governing physique wanted to ”set up the information” earlier than deciding its ”subsequent step”.
”We try to resolve it in the meanwhile… we have to search out out what really occurred.”
”I have not spoken to Sam aside from a textual content message to verify in on her wellbeing.”
Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson advised reporters in Sydney that he was ”stunned” by the allegations however could not say something additional.
”The one factor I can remark is my expertise and interplay with Sam as an individual and as a footballer, and I’ve solely constructive expertise with that,” he stated.
Throughout her time at Chelsea, Kerr has received 4 WSL titles, three FA Cups, two Girls’s League Cups and the Girls’s Neighborhood Defend.
She has additionally been nominated for the Ballon d’Or Féminin – the highest prize in ladies’s soccer – ever 12 months since its inception in 2018, inserting second final 12 months.