Gotham FC forward Sam Kerr said that she only considered returning to the NWSL, where she is still the league’s leader in regular season goals, when she decided to leave Chelsea after six years at the London club.
“With all the change at Chelsea and me wanting something new, it was really the only league that I saw myself in,” Kerr told reporters on Thursday in her first press availability since signing for Gotham. “I had a lot of ties to the league. Obviously, Kristie [Mewis, wife] is from America, and I just really enjoyed my time here, so I wanted to come back, hopefully win some championships and be part of that again.”
Kerr is eligible to debut for Gotham on July 15 against the Washington Spirit at Citi Field in Queens, New York. The match takes place one day after the NWSL’s transfer window opens, which is when Kerr can be officially registered with the league.
Kerr called her return to Gotham a “full-circle moment” after playing for the team — then known as Sky Blue FC — from 2015-2017. Kerr won the 2017 NWSL MVP and Golden Boot awards with Sky Blue FC, scoring a (since broken) record 17 goals that season.
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She moved to the Chicago Red Stars the following season, and she played for the Western New York Flash for two seasons prior to joining Sky Blue FC.
She still holds the league’s regular-season scoring record with 77 goals, seven more than Lynn Biyendolo, who is out on maternity leave.
Kerr’s new deal with Gotham FC runs through 2030 — nearly the league maximum of five years — and she turns 33 in September. Kerr said on Wednesday that stability was top of mind when deciding on her next team after moving around the NWSL in her last stint in the United States.
She declined to name which other NWSL teams she spoke to but said she decided on Gotham in May.
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Kerr returns to a franchise that has rebranded itself and completely reshaped its identity.
When she was last at the club, Sky Blue was a team playing games at a college stadium in central New Jersey and training at a facility without locker rooms or running water. Now, Gotham plays at Sports Illustrated Stadium — with plans to move to NYCFC’s new stadium in Queens, New York, in 2028 — and will soon move into its own remodeled training facility in northern New Jersey.
“The last time I left Gotham — Sky Blue at the time — we were playing in front of a couple thousand people,” Kerr said. “And this [Citi Field game] is the type of thing we were fighting for: sold-out stadiums, the best facilities, the best players and the wages we deserved. So many people have done amazing things over the last six years while I’ve been gone that have allowed me to come back and kind of live out my American dream.”
Kerr is not eligible for the NWSL’s new High Impact Player rule that allows teams to pay star players up to $1 million over the salary cap. She missed out on the various qualifiers created by the league largely due to a 20-month absence from the field while recovering from a torn ACL.
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That created a salary cap challenge for a Gotham FC team already stacked with stars, but the club’s president of soccer operations Yael Averbuch West said on Thursday that they “view the salary cap as a competitive weapon,” and that they are relentless in optimizing all of the league rules to fill out the roster.
Allocation money, which is being phased out by the league but still exists and allows teams to offset cap hits, is part of that creative solution.
Gotham, according to league documents previously obtained by ESPN, had about $900,000 in unused allocation money as of December, one of the highest sums in the NWSL. All of that will expire at the end of this year and must be used before then.
Gotham also acquired $350,000 in expansion allocation money in the recent transfer of defender Lilly Reale to Boston Legacy FC. Because it comes from an expansion team, that money can be used through 2027.
That is $1.25 million in allocation money that Gotham can use toward player salaries that will not count against the cap.
The team also has players eligible for HIP. Defender Emily Sonnett recently signed a new contract through 2028, and her agent said in an Instagram post that the High Impact Player rule was applied, which offsets Sonnett’s cap hit. Midfielder Rose Lavelle is also eligible for HIP and is an impending free agent.
That Kerr’s deal stretches until 2030 also allows Gotham to spread the total guaranteed pay. The cap will rise from this year’s $3.7 million (adjusted after revenue sharing) to at least $5.1 million in 2030, per the current collective bargaining agreement.
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“All of the league rules, how can we optimize and pack the most talent into a really well balanced roster? We take a lot of pride in that,” Averbuch West said. “And obviously, as you guys can understand, as players come and as we continue to evolve our roster, not everyone can come along for the journey. Obviously, you saw the trade for Lilly Reale, and [I’m] happy she is able to go play at home. But there are always tough decisions we need to make when it comes to our roster.
“In its essence, we are very creative about our cap management, and we have the intention of keeping as many stars at the club as possible. And obviously, the salary cap is a huge challenge when it comes to navigating that. Sam could have played at any club in the world that she wanted to, and we don’t take that lightly.
“For us, it’s about making an offer that shows respect to the player and also getting creative about what we do. Ultimately, too, all of our players are at Gotham because they want to play around other top players, and that really has a huge impact on things.”
