Sam Kerr will leave Chelsea at the end of the 2025-26 season after six-and-a-half years with the Women’s Super League champions.
Kerr is set to depart upon the expiration of her contract after five WSL titles, three FA Cups, three League Cups and 115 goals.
The Athletic reported in March that the Australia international was expected to leave in the summer, with strong interest from multiple NWSL clubs. She joins Millie Bright in leaving, after the centre-back announced her retirement with immediate effect in April following 314 appearances and 20 trophies.
With one game left to play, Kerr is one goal behind Fran Kirby’s all-time Chelsea goalscoring record, but already leads the standings with regards to the league. She is their fourth-highest appearance maker with 157 since her arrival in 2020.
“When I reflect on my Chelsea career and doing it for the last time (against Manchester United this Saturday), I just feel happy,” Kerr said in a statement on Chelsea’s website.
“(I’m) happy that it happened, and I feel so grateful to have played for this club for six years and won as many trophies as we could.”
Kerr won two consecutive WSL golden boot awards in 2020-21 and 2021-22 as Chelsea won the league, before winning the WSL Player of the Year Award and Football Writers’ Association Women’s Footballer of the Year in the season after. In October 2023 she came second in the Ballon d’Or rankings.
In January 2024, however, the forward sustained an anterior cruciate ligament injury and was sidelined until September this term. She has made 29 appearances as Chelsea have ceded their title to Manchester City, who knocked them out of the FA Cup on Sunday, instead sitting in third with one game to play.
‘Ruthless finishing and a leading figure’
Analysis by women’s football writer Charlotte Harpur
Kerr will be remembered for her time at Chelsea as a formidable complete striker who was instrumental to their domestic dominance in England.
An intelligent player, she was calculated with her off the ball movements and sniffed out chances in the box with ruthless finishing. She had an aura on and off the pitch, loved the big stage as she performed celebratory backflips and was a leading figure in the dressing room, forming a special bond with former manager Emma Hayes. Her brace against Manchester United as Chelsea launched a comeback on the last day of the 2021-22 campaign to claim the league title was trademark Kerr, pulling something extraordinary out of nothing.
Kerr’s last season at Chelsea has been stop start after she made her long-awaited return from an anterior cruciate ligament injury in September. Under Sonia Bompastor, she has made just four starts in 21 WSL games — three of which came after she played regular minutes, captaining Australia to the Asia Cup final in March. Many NWSL clubs have shown strong interest in the Australia international and at 32 years old she has shown she still has more to give.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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