Chelsea Women star Sam Kerr has had a tumultuous last couple of years. After an incident in January 2023 involving a taxi driver and a late night trip to a police station, she faced charges of racially aggravated harassment. A year later in January 2024 she tore her ACL in a club training camp in Morocco and has not played football since, missing the rest of the Chelsea season and the Paris Olympics.
Now in February 2025, Kerr has been found not guilty by a jury of her peers of the racially aggravated harassment charge and can finally move past the incident. We won't get into the details of the night and what has transpired since, but all that matters is that she cleared of the charges and will no longer have to answer questions about what she described as a “traumatic evening” for her and fiancée, West Ham midfielder Kristie Mewis.
Kerr has continued to rehab from her ACL injury and has been doing so with the longevity of her career in mind. Still just 31 years old, Kerr could easily play top level football for at least another half decade and making sure she is fully recovered is the best way to do so. Another layer to this is that this is her second ACL injury as she suffered a tear in 2012 as well.
The Australian star is signed on with Chelsea until 2026 and has been one of the most decorated players in women’s football since joining in 2019. She has 10 major trophies to her name and helped Australia to a fourth-place finish in the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Her goalscoring record for the Blues is incredible as well with 99 goals in 128 appearances for the London club.
Chelsea Women have been able to maintain their incredible run of form without her as they won the WSL title in 2023-24 and currently sit top of the table with 9 matches to go. Guro Reiten and Agnes Beever-Jones have taken on the role of goalscorer in the league but neither are anywhere near her 17 goals per season average in the WSL.
It is very realistic that Kerr makes her return at some point this season and it would represent an incredible boost to a club that has hopes of a treble in 2025. Chelsea Women are loaded with stars at every level and they legitimately run two deep at every position but there is no substitute for the goalscoring dynamism of Sam Kerr. Now a year removed from her ACL injury and the not guilty verdict, she can fully focus on getting back to playing football and banging in goals for Chelsea Women.