Gotham FC and Australian forward Sam Kerr have agreed to terms to bring Kerr back to the club and the NWSL, multiple sources told ESPN.
Kerr is a free agent. She spent six years with English heavyweights Chelsea, where she twice won the Women’s Super League Golden Boot along with five league titles and six different domestic cups.
She played her final game for Chelsea in May, when she scored the lone goal in a 1-0 win over Manchester United to equal the Chelsea scoring record with 116 career goals for the club.
Kerr spent the formative years of her professional career in the NWSL, including with Gotham FC when the club was previously known as Sky Blue FC.
Kerr won the NWSL Golden Boot and MVP awards in 2017 with Sky Blue FC in 2017, when she scored 17 goals in 22 games.
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Kerr moved to the Chicago Red Stars (now just Stars) the following year and scored 16 goals. She broke her own single-season scoring record by netting 18 goals in 21 games in 2019, all while leading Australia at the World Cup and missing some games as the NWSL continued playing.
She is still the leader in regular-season NWSL goals scored (77) despite not playing in the league since 2019.
There was public media speculation throughout the spring about Kerr’s potential return to the NWSL.
She and American midfielder Kristie Mewis recently got married and have a child together. Mewis is a Boston-area native who played for six different NWSL teams in her career. She has not officially retired since departing West Ham United in 2025.
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Despite her vast success, Kerr is not eligible for the NWSL’s new High Impact Player rule as it was originally constructed. The rule allows teams to spend up to $1 million over the salary cap to pay star players, but it requires those players to meet certain criteria designed by the league.
She tore her ACL in January 2024 and she was out for 20 months, meaning she hasn’t won awards in recent seasons.
Gotham FC acquired $350,000 in expansion allocation money from Boston Legacy FC for defender Lilly Reale in a transfer that was announced on Wednesday. That allocation money can be used through the end of 2027 and can also be used to offset cap expenses.
Kerr started her NWSL career with the Western New York Flash (now the North Carolina Courage) in the league’s inaugural season in 2013.
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She also played for Perth Glory and Sydney FC in various stints in Australia.
Kerr debuted for Australia as a 15-year-old in 2009. She has long captained the team, including on home soil at the World Cup in 2023 despite managing a calf injury. Australia made the semifinals for the first time.
Kerr returns to a club that looks unrecognizable from the one she left nearly a decade ago.
When Kerr returned to New Jersey with the Red Stars to play Sky Blue FC, she told reporters after that July 2018 game that “the girls deserve better … I wish I could take every single one of them with me but that’s not the way it is.” A week later, The Equalizer published an investigation detailing a Sky Blue FC practice facility that lacked locker rooms, running water, or permanent bathrooms.
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The club rebranded as NJ/NY Gotham FC in 2021 and moved to Red Bull Arena (now Sports Illustrated Stadium), closer to New York City.
Earlier this month, Gotham announced plans to repurpose and customize the New York Red Bulls’ old training facility to make it their own bespoke home for the first time.
Gotham is also in discussions with NYCFC about playing at the new Etihad Park in Queens, which opens next year.
