Matildas interim coach Tom Sermanni can’t answer one Sam Kerr question

The interim Matildas coach was peppered with questions about Sam Kerr and her future on Tuesday and didn’t have a lot of answers.

Sam Kerr’s position as Matildas captain has become an “interesting question” for interim coach Tom Sermanni in the wake of shocking court footage but he insists his only focus is her health and return to the national team.

Sermanni said Kerr had been “running strongly” in recent footage he’d see but she “wasn’t ready” to be picked in the squad for the upcoming SheBelieves Cup tournament and her absence was not related to the behaviour of the Matildas captain revealed on the opening day of her court hearing in London.

Bodycam footage from a British police officer showed Kerr, who hasn’t played since injuring her knee in January, 2024, calling him “f***ing stupid and white” after she was arrested following a verbal altercation with a taxi driver after a night drinking.

Sam Kerr raises her phone to police officers. Photo: X.

Asked about “standards” expected of a captain, and whether Kerr had breached them, Sermanni said “I don’t know the answer”.

“I hadn’t even thought of that scenario at this stage,” he said

“My main scenario, first and foremost, is to look at this squad for this tournament and focus on that.

“My main scenario is hopefully that she gets back to good health as quickly and as safely as possible.”

Kerr is still recovering from the ACL injury which sidelined her for all of 2024 and while her return is expected in the coming months, Sermanni, couldn’t say whether she’d still be captain.

“It’s difficult for me to answer that,” he said.

“To be perfectly honest, I think obviously, with the court case that on at the moment, it would be a bit unwise of me to sort of comment on that and comment on the outcome, or whatever that outcome might be of that.

“So I think it’s a case of waiting to see what happens and then and then move on from there. You know, from a football perspective, my main aim as the head coach is hopefully to have Sam fit and healthy and as quick a time as possible.

“I saw some video of her last week, and she’s running pretty strongly. So, you know, from my perspective, I’ll let this process take its course, and then we’ll look at what we do after that.”

Matildas Interim Head Coach, Tom Sermanni talks to the media (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

He was adamant her fitness was the only thing which kept her out of the 23-player squad for the tournament in the USA.

“She’s not ready to play again,” he said

“I had some video of her last week, and her physio was over at Chelsea last week and got some video of her doing some fairly strong running. So she’s in the process of coming back, but I would still suggest, from an injury perspective, it will probably be sometime in March, before she’s back on the field.”

Sermanni wasn’t sure of his own tenure, with no full-time replacement for Tony Gustavsson yet locked in.

“It’s a situation where, you know, I might be here next obviously, I’ll be here for the she believes after that I could be here for the next window. But then, it could be that the Federation have a coaching place that happens very quickly, you know, things in football, have got strange twists and tons and can happen quite quickly, or could still be here for some time.