Why Football Australia made right call in keeping Sam Kerr as captain

Sam Kerr’s Matildas return has come earlier than anyone expected. She secretly flew into Sydney late on Sunday night – just hours before Football Australia announced that it was time to move on from the off-field drama that had surrounded her and the team for the same period.

Kerr has not been medically cleared to play, but after discussions between her club, Chelsea, and Football Australia, it was mutually agreed the best course of action for her would be to continue the final stages of her rehabilitation from a long-term knee injury with the Matildas’ high-performance staff.

Sam Kerr has been sidelined with an ACL injury since January.Credit: Rick Rycroft

So she won’t wear the captain’s armband on Friday night at Allianz Stadium in the first of two friendlies between Australia and South Korea. But she will wear it again.

Football Australia had no option but to reach that decision.

The joint statement issued by Kerr and FA on Monday morning was wonderfully vague. It made no specific reference to anything that happened in the early hours of January 30, 2023, when she was involved in a drunken dispute with a taxi driver and later charged with racially aggravated abuse against a police officer for calling him “stupid and white” out of frustration that PC Stephen Lovell wasn’t taking her complaints seriously.

Instead, the statement spoke of “recent events”, or “events that were widely circulated and critiqued”. It said Kerr’s behaviour had “implications” in relation to FA’s code of conduct, but stopped short of saying she had breached it.

Sam Kerr arrives at court in Kingston upon Thames for her trial for a charge of racial harassment.Credit: Getty Images

Kerr expressed “sincere regret” for her actions and issued a clear mea culpa.

“I recognise that leadership means being mindful of our actions both on and off the pitch. I’m proud of the Matildas, the role I have played as a member of that team and everything we stand for, and I’m committed to learning from this experience,” Kerr said. “Moving forward, I’m focused on doing my part to ensure we grow even stronger together, and I look forward to having the opportunity of rejoining the team once I’m fit and ready.”

With Kerr having admitted she stuffed up, and acknowledging the error of her ways and the damage she had caused, the only other major issue FA might have had was the fact she didn’t tell them in advance that she had been charged, leaving chief executive James Johnson and his board to find out at the same time as the rest of the world.

Presumably, all grievances were suitably aired in the meeting between Kerr and FA’s board, and in the federation’s thorough review of the “events”, which included input from other unnamed stakeholders.

It left FA chairman Anter Isaac with the following view: “Knowing how Sam feels about the events, along with the additional context we’ve learned, has added vital perspective that the general public may not be aware of. Setting aside those difficulties, this one incident should not offset the incredible contributions she has made, both publicly and privately, on and off the field – for more than 15 years.”

It’s important to remember that Kerr was found not guilty by a jury. The case brought against her was spurious and a waste of British public resources. None of her sponsors have deserted her. Her teammates want her back. And when she walks out onto Leichhardt Oval on Tuesday afternoon for the Matildas’ open training session – her first with the team since October 2023 – it’s hard to imagine anything other than a warm reception from the fans in attendance.

Banning Kerr from the captaincy would have not only put her, her teammates and thousands of Matildas fans offside. It would have been FA giving in to the culture warriors howling about reverse racism and calling for her to be stripped of the captaincy, or the many others drawing false equivalencies between what would have happened to a male athlete in an alternate universe had they said something completely different.

As for the Matildas, re football (remember that?)

Though they won’t benefit from her help on the pitch, having her back is an immediate shot in the arm for her teammates.

Kerr is such a popular figure in the dressing room that her sheer presence should uplift their spirits – and frankly, after their bruising SheBelieves Cup experience, they need as much psychological help as they can get.

When these friendlies were booked a couple of months ago, it was widely assumed that the Matildas would have a permanent head coach in place by now. But with interim coach Tom Sermanni still keeping the seat warm, they remain stuck in a painful purgatory, unable to properly move forward because, at some point soon, a new coach with new tactics and a new selection outlook will soon wipe the slate clean and start all over again.

At least Kerr will be something of a circuit-breaker, reintroducing a new old dynamic. Sermanni was the coach who handed Kerr her international debut as a 15-year-old in 2009. If nothing else, this camp will serve as her successful reintegration into the Matildas set-up, and the full stop on a stretch of her career that everyone will be happy to leave behind.