05/03/2024
05/03/2024

LONDON, March 5, (AP): Australian soccer star Sam Kerr has pleaded not guilty to racially aggravated harassment of a police officer, prosecutors in Britain said.
The 30-year-old striker, who plays her club soccer for Chelsea in England, was charged with causing a police officer harassment, alarm, or distress during an incident in Twickenham, southwest London, on Jan. 30 last year, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.
The PA news agency in Britain reported that London's Metropolitan Police said the incident involved an officer who was responding to a complaint about a taxi fare.
Kerr was charged in January. She denied the charge at a plea and trial preparation hearing at Kingston upon Thames Crown Court on Monday, the Press Association reported. She is set to face court next February.
Chelsea has not commented officially about the reported incident.
Football Australia CEO James Johnson and women's national team coach Tony Gustavsson told Australian media they’d only been made aware of the charges against Kerr on Tuesday morning.
Johnson said he had sent a message to Kerr to check in on her welfare but hadn’t had a conversation with her about it.
"We’re trying to get to the bottom of it. We have our questions we would like to know,” Johnson was quoted by News Corp. as saying during a press conference in Adelaide. "There is a process that is underway and that process needs to run its course.
"I don’t want to get into the allegations. They are serious allegations. At the same time, Sam has rights - natural justice rights, procedural rights - that she has to work her way through and we respect that.”