Sam Kerr knows a thing or two about how to put on a show. From spellbinding her fans at every club she’s played for to becoming a global superstar who has taken Chelsea to the pinnacle of domestic superiority, supporters across the world have heard her name and understand the seismic influence she’s had, not just on the women’s game, but further afield, too.
For newcomers, Kerr’s name might resonate most profoundly through her transcendental capers at the summer’s Women’s World Cup. The talismanic striker became the face of a Matildas team that changed the perspective of football in their home country of Australia. A football-parched nation no longer, Kerr was a binding superstar who produced enchanting performances by the bucketload as the co-hosts finished fourth down under.
As a result of a consistently phenomenal season, the Chelsea favourite finished as runner-up in this year’s Ballon d’Or Féminin ranking, which cements her status as a sporting megastar. It was the crowning achievement of the 2022/23 campaign for the only footballer to have won a Golden Boot in three different leagues – and on three different continents – across her career.
In simple terms, she is sensational. But while Sam Kerr is known mostly for her goals and trophy hauls, there is so much more to know about the ‘Wizard of Oz’ – something Football FanCast has explored here.
Sam Kerr’s age
Kerr was born on 10 September 1993 in East Fremantle, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, and is 30 years old.
Kerr played Australian rules football when she was young. Both her father and older brother Daniel were professional Australian rules footballers. She followed in their footsteps until switching to association football at the age of 12, mostly due to gender restrictions.
Her mother also came from a strong sporting lineage; her uncle Con Regan, father Harry, and another uncle, J. J. Miller, were all professional football players in the West Australian Football League (WAFL), and Galilee, who was ridden by Miller, won horse racing’s Melbourne Cup in 1966.
It was in Perth where Kerr would remain during her childhood until stardom hit her early into adolescence.
Sam Kerr’s height
Despite only standing at 1.67m (5ft 6in) – which is short, even for the women’s game – Sam Kerr is known for her athleticism and ability to jump high and beat defenders to the ball, using her legs like a coiled spring.
Of the 77 goals she scored in the NWSL for Sky Blue FC and Chicago Red Stars, 17 were headed. Meanwhile, of the 29 goals she scored in her 2020/21 debut season for current club Chelsea, another 10 were also from headers.
In comparison with other elite-level strikers across the women’s game, Kerr is certainly shorter than those known for their aerial presence. German Alexandra Popp is 1.74m (5 foot 9) and WSL rival striker Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw is 1.82m (6 feet).
Sam Kerr’s stats and career to date
Despite facing some struggles transitioning from Australian rules football to association football, at age 13, Kerr was spotted by Perth Glory striker Bobby Despotovski, who described her athleticism and raw talent as “exceptional”. At age 15, she made her W-League and international debuts for Perth Glory and the Matildas, which gave the striker her first knee-up early into her remarkable journey.
It was in the same season that she also got her first taste of gold. She was voted Players’ Player at the 2009 W-League awards, and awarded Goal of the Year for her long-range goal against Sydney FC. In her sophomore season, she started all 10 games, scoring three goals in the 2010/11 campaign.
Kerr’s time at Perth Glory helped to catalyse a long and successful career, and while she would return a year later after a short stint with Western New York Flash, it wasn’t long before the talismanic striker left her humble beginnings in search of another adventure in the NWSL.
Overall, across 73 league games for Perth Glory, Kerr scored a staggering 65 goals, which helped her earn a career-propelling move to Sky Blue FC in 2015.
In just two years with her new club, the Australian made a weighty impact. In the 2017 season, Kerr set a new NWSL record when she scored 4 goals in a single game after being down 3–0 to Seattle Reign at halftime. Sky Blue eventually won the match 5–4 because of their artful and pirouetting new forward.
By the age of 23, Kerr sat atop the all-time NWSL goalscoring table. And in her final season for Sky Blue FC, Kerr won the NWSL Golden Boot and MVP award after finishing the 2017 term with a record-breaking 17 goals before being traded, alongside teammate Nikki Stanton, to Chicago Red Stars a year later in 2018.
In Chicago, Kerr caught the attention of the globe when she became the first, and only, player to be named the NWSL MVP twice, while continuing her goalscoring reign of terror as she helped herself to three Golden Boots from three consecutive seasons.
Sam Kerr at Chelsea
On 13 November 2019, WSL club Chelsea announced Kerr would be joining the club for the second half of the 2019/20 FA WSL season on a two-and-a-half-year contract. In her first season, she helped the Blues to a 2-1 victory over nearest rivals Arsenal in the League Cup final before also finishing the WSL in top spot – ensuring she would be an English champion for the first time out of four consecutive title triumphs under Emma Hayes.
During her first full season in the West End, Kerr proved herself as one of the best strikers in not only the women’s game, but football in every form. She scored a hat-trick in a 6-0 win over Bristol City to win her second League Cup title and led the club’s goalscoring charts as they yet again lifted the top-flight trophy aloft.
In the 2021/22 WSL season, Kerr continued exhibiting fine form and was nominated for the Barclays Player of the Month for September. On 16 November 2021, Kerr signed a two-year contract extension, keeping her at the club until the end of the 2023–24 season, saying: “I can’t see myself going anywhere else in the world or leaving Europe, having what I have at Chelsea.”
The following week, Kerr scored the winning goal in Chelsea’s Champions League group stage match against Servette, and scored her third league hat-trick, against Birmingham City, within 26 minutes, as well as providing the assist for team-mate Fran Kirby’s 100th Chelsea goal, with Kerr celebrating her achievement with her signature back-flip – a celebration her managers throughout her career have criticised in fear the Aussie would injure herself.
To a watchful eye’s grace, though, her fitness record remains relatively unscarred. The Australian’s hardiness, mentally and physically, has allowed her to perform at her apex for 15 years. On 5th December, Kerr scored a brace in the delayed FA Cup final against Arsenal, winning Player of the Match, and helping her team lift the trophy and secure the domestic quadruple of the 2020–21 season, the first English women’s club to achieve the feat. She ended the 2021 calendar year as the leading goalscorer in the WSL, with 23 goals, and was second in total assists with 10, behind Kirby.
Chelsea is where she has thrived the most. Her pacey runs in behind defences to latch on to long balls, her strength to beat opponents with a larger stature than her, her close control and effectiveness to pirouette and waltz past markers like they don’t exist, and, of course, her unparalleled excellence to find the back of the net from any distance or angle, have made her a generational ace.
To add to her moneyed trajectory, in the 2021/22 season, The Wizard of Oz picked up her goal scoring blitz where she left, scoring 10 goals in 7 consecutive matches, the first Chelsea player to do so. In April 2022, Kerr was awarded the FWA Women’s Footballer of the Year, receiving 40% of the vote ahead of Vivianne Miedema and Lauren Hemp, and won the FA WSL April Player of the Month. She ended the season with 32 goals and 9 assists in all competitions.
In the 22-23 season, numbers weren’t as high as Kerr’s lofty standards. Still, she helped Chelsea to their fourth consecutive league title and another FA Cup victory.
Overall, in 70 WSL appearances, Sam Kerr has scored 55 times. She has won the division all four seasons with the Blues, the FA Cup three times, the League Cup twice, and finished as a Champions League runner-up once. Yet, this is just the prologue as she continues to call Chelsea here forever home.
Sam Kerr’s influence on football is best seen from her international commitments. Long known for being more of an Aussie rules, cricket, and rugby country, Australia has suffered from a lack of success in Kerr’s favourite sport. However, after the Matildas’ most recent World Cup campaign, hosted Down Under, the tides are changing.
The Australian women’s national team reached fourth in the summer tournament, far further than anybody had expected. With a team boasting talented footballers such as Kyra Cooney-Cross, Steph Catley, Caitlin Foord, Ellie Carpenter, among others, the Matildas had their own taste of football coming home in a narrative-changing period that brought their country together in communal celebration.
Despite being injured for much of the campaign, Kerr was rightly dubbed as the face of the nation. And while debates over whether Australia was a football nation roared before 2023, the scenes and rave that entrenched Oceania in June, July, August meant that, now, there is no doubt over Kerr’s country’s place in the sport.
“The crowds and the fans have proved that [Australia is a football nation], not us,” she said after scoring one of the Goals of the Tournament against England in the semi-finals.
“They’re the ones that have come out and supported us and watched us on the big screen, bought our jerseys. I think that’s all down to the fans showing that this country really will get behind football if you bring the world game to our country.”
“I now truly believe we are a footballing country,” added teammate Gorry. “Every nation that’s been here, not just us, everyone has felt it. Everyone has seen it. Football in Australia is going to change forever now. I think that’s so special to be a part of.”
And at the heart of it all, was Sam Kerr, arguably. She is the exciting pacesetter for any great team performance she’s involved in. It is this reason that, in 2022, she was awarded the Order of Australia medal in recognition of her services to football. Within this role, she helped captain the Matildas to a record-breaking World Cup that proved Oz has fallen in love with a new sport.
- This 2023 Women’s World Cup became the most-attended women’s sporting event ever, with nearly two million fans attending the Australia and New Zealand matches (marking an increase of over 600,000 attendees compared to the 2019 tournament in France).
- The Matildas’ match against England became the most watched television program in Australia – sport or otherwise – since 2001 when the existing rating system was established.
- 957,000 viewers watched as the Matildas bowed out of the tournament on streaming platform 7plus, which Seven claims was a new record for streaming.
Sam Kerr’s salary
Women’s football has gone from strength to strength in recent years, and with more exposure resulting in more revenue, wages are going up. But it is still nominal when compared to the men’s game.
According to a BBC analysis last year, the average wage in the Women’s Super League was £47,000 per year. This is some way off the average Premier League player, which is £60,000 per week (£3million per year), according to the Professional Footballer’s Association.
However, Sam Kerr’s yearly wage of £417k does make her the highest-paid women’s footballer, ahead of Alex Morgan (£375k) and Megan Rapinoe (£373k).
Sam Kerr’s net worth
In a modern world brimming with commercial incentives such as sponsorships, investments and media fees, it’s difficult to even begin to work out a ballpark figure for an athlete’s net worth.
But according to FreshersLive, which used Forbes and BusinessInsider during their research, Sam Kerr has a net worth of $5m. This takes into account her sponsorship with Nike and her salary, among other monetary benefits the Australian sports star has acquired.
Sam Kerr’s partner
Such is the way that the weird web of WOSO relationships work, it’s always difficult to decipher who’s with who and what their status is. But with Sam Kerr, much like her football, it comes effortlessly.
Sam Kerr and USWNT Kristie Mewis are the undisputed power couple of women’s football, with the pair amassing thousands of followers on social media during the blossoming of their relationship since getting together in 2020.
Mewis, a 32-year-old USA international who plays for Gotham FC, revealed earlier this year that things were ‘getting serious’, and rumours fluttered around a possible engagement after she was pictured with a ring on her left hand.
This hasn’t been confirmed, but the couple certainly let it be known that they are head over heels in love with their regular embraces whenever they come up against each other on the international stage.
Previously, Kerr had shared a six-year romance with ex-teammate Nikki Stanton. But love is in the air again. This time, it looks nailed on to last, despite the distance spanning across the Atlantic.
Sam Kerr’s Ballon d’Or chances
Sam Kerr was the only Australian women’s footballer to be named to the shortlist for the Ballon d’Or Féminin in 2022, and one of only two players (alongside France international Wendie Renard) to have been nominated in all editions of the award since its inception in 2018, ranking 5th, 7th, 3rd, 3rd, and 2nd respectively.
It seems like only a matter of time before she wins it. Perhaps the only thing blocking her from the famous golden ball is her hunt for continental and international silverware. In the last three years, the Ballon d’Or has been handed to a winner of either the World Cup, European Championship, or the Champions League, with Barcelona’s Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmatí sweeping up a trilogy.
Without an international tournament next summer, Kerr’s best chance of coming first in the next edition is to win the Champions League in Bilbao come June – a trophy that both herself and Chelsea are desperate to add to their treasure chest.
With Sam Kerr in attack and Emma Hayes in the cockpit, the Blues have won everything else they have competed for. Should they add Europe to their list of conquests, Kerr is bound to notch a Ballon d’Or – something that would, beyond doubt, secure her position as the best women’s footballer England has ever laid eyes on.
