The moment Samantha May Kerr made her Matildas debut at the age of 15, everyone watching knew there was something special about her. From her uncanny ability to sniff out a goal, to her strengths in the air, and her unaffected charm – Kerr’s career trajectory was as thrilling to watch as it was to enjoy once she reached the heights of global esteem.

But no amount of penalty shootouts, World Cup appearances or Women’s FA Cup finals could prepare Kerr for the pressure she’s under now after news broke that she’d been charged with causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress to a London police officer.

Sam Kerr will face trial early next year.Credit: Richard Wainwright

My heart refused to believe that the woman who admired my pregnant stomach in 2019 and said she couldn’t “wait to have kids”, who was so humble, and would fetch coffees for her teammates while I interviewed them, could do such a thing.

She has fronted anti-racism calls and championed Chelsea’s “No To Hate” campaign, which aims to “fight against all forms of hate, including racism, homophobia, sexism and religious intolerance”. She is proud of her Indian heritage, and knows what it’s like to be discriminated against for her sexual orientation, race and gender.

“No,” I told myself, “she couldn’t have done this.”

My head, on the other hand, began to wildly speculate about her possible guilt and what types of insulting, threatening or abusive words she could have used that caused “alarm or distress”. It has since come to light, via British tabloid The Sun, that Kerr allegedly called a police officer “a stupid white bastard” during a dispute over a taxi fare on January 30 last year. She reportedly vomited in the cab after a night out and is alleged to have made the slur when police arrived.

Lucy Zelic interviews Sam Kerr in 2017.

Many will question whether the alleged slur satisfies a criminal threshold. Where a black and white argument starts to become grey is whether or not the alleged remark amounts to a form of racism. We know little of the detail but we know this much: a white, male police officer is accusing a lesbian, female footballer of Indian heritage of racism.

Last year, Associate Professor Mario Peucker, principal research fellow at Melbourne’s Victoria University, penned an article claiming that “reverse racism” – or anti-white racism – is a myth. That is because it ignores one of racism’s central markers: power. White power accumulated from centuries of colonisation and dominance. Peucker cites a definition from a 1988 paper on the subject: “Racism equals power plus prejudice.”