In November, Chelsea striker and Australian national team captain Sam Kerr and USWNT midfielder Kristie Mewis announced they were expecting a baby in 2025, and great news, now that baby is here! The two posted an adorable selfie on Instagram announcing their baby boy Jagger Mewis-Kerr, the caption reading: “Our little man is here.”
Kerr and Mewis are among some of the many pro soccer players who have been in an open queer relationship for a while. They made their relationship public during the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and got engaged in 2023. There haven’t really been any updates about a wedding since, but who cares! Let people do their own thing!
Kerr has been sidelined by a ruptured ACL injury that has kept her off the pitch for 15 months. She was included on Chelsea’s Champions League roster, but she never made it into a game before Chelsea was bested by Barcelona in the semi-finals last weekend. Hopefully, she’ll be back in the game soon!
But for now, she’s busy in new parent bliss alongside Mewis, who gave birth to their son. As we reported at the time of their pregnancy announcement, parental protections pertaining to leave and job security for pregnant players as well as new parents within soccer governing bodies have a lot of room for improvement, though some strides have been made in recent years.
The Football Association and Professional Footballers’ Association introduced a new parental policy in 2022 that guarantees players 100% of their weekly wage for the first 14 weeks of leave, regardless of how long they’ve been at their respective club. Chelsea has been at the forefront of better rules and support for pregnant players, including even hiring a pelvic floor specialist to work with returning players. Mewis currently plays for West Ham United, and her contract is good until June 2025. Currently, there are no regulations in place that require clubs to extend contracts upon pregnancy announcements. In June 2024, a new FIFA rule mandated that if a player’s contract is terminated directly due to pregnancy, the club can face the penalty of fines and a year-long ban from the transfer market. But when Mewis’ contract expires next month, the club is not obligated by any existing rules to renew it, so her window of protection under those new FIFA rules has closed.
Kerr’s current contract with Chelsea is good until summer 2026, and as the non-gestational parent, she’s guaranteed eight weeks of paid absence to be taken within six months of the baby’s birth. But it’s unclear to me how her current injury leave might impact that right to parental leave.
Maybe not everyone finds this deep dive on parental rules and regulations within the world of women’s soccer, but I certainly do!!!! So many sports leagues and governing bodies are still struggling to create genuine gender parity and support pregnant players, who shouldn’t have to choose between their careers and starting families. So many of these protections were put into place so recently, and hopefully FIFA and other regulatory governing bodies continue to implement more progressive policies that actually support and protect players.
