Sam Kerr’s Matildas return has come earlier than anyone expected. She secretly flew into Sydney late on Sunday night – just hours before Football Australia announced that it was time to move on from the off-field drama that had surrounded her and the team for the same period.

Kerr has not been medically cleared to play, but after discussions between her club, Chelsea, and Football Australia, it was mutually agreed the best course of action for her would be to continue the final stages of her rehabilitation from a long-term knee injury with the Matildas’ high-performance staff.

Sam Kerr has been sidelined with an ACL injury since January.Credit: Rick Rycroft

So she won’t wear the captain’s armband on Friday night at Allianz Stadium in the first of two friendlies between Australia and South Korea. But she will wear it again.

Football Australia had no option but to reach that decision.

The joint statement issued by Kerr and FA on Monday morning was wonderfully vague. It made no specific reference to anything that happened in the early hours of January 30, 2023, when she was involved in a drunken dispute with a taxi driver and later charged with racially aggravated abuse against a police officer for calling him “stupid and white” out........

© The Sydney Morning Herald