Sam Kerr’s racially aggravated harassment charge puts Football Australia in a tricky place

Football Australia has been engulfed in a crisis it never saw coming.

Global football superstar Sam Kerr – captain of the hugely popular Matildas national women’s team – has been charged in England with the racially aggravated harassment of a police officer. She stands accused of using insulting, threatening or abusive words that caused alarm or distress to the officer, who was responding to a taxi dispute in London in January 2023.

Kerr has pleaded not guilty, with Judge Judith Elaine Coello quoted as saying to the player’s barrister:

I understand that the defence is that she didn’t intend to cause alarm, harassment or distress to the officer, [her behaviour] did not amount to it and it was not racially aggravated.

If found guilty, the public order act she has been charged under carries a prison sentence of up two years and/or a substantial fine, given the…