The Chelsea captain, Millie Bright, and manager, Sonia Bompastor, have strongly condemned homophobic abuse aimed at Sam Kerr, after the Chelsea striker and her partner, West Ham’s Kristie Mewis, shared news that they are expecting a baby.
Kerr, the Australia captain, and Mewis, a USA international, shared photos of Mewis’s baby bump but Chelsea soon issued a statement criticising “unacceptable and hateful” messages among the comments, which had to be switched off by Kerr.
Bright said: “If I wasn’t a footballer, I’d come off social media in a heartbeat, because there can be a lot of good things and it can also be overshadowed by so many negatives. There shouldn’t be any room in this world for comments like that or behaviour like that. I totally disagree with it. It shouldn’t be tolerated.
“Social media can be either the best thing or the worst thing in the world. It’s a real shame because it should be a place where people share memories and their joys in their life. Let’s hope that we can move forward and make the world a better place on social media and spread happy comments.”
Bright joked that she was looking forward to seeing Kerr’s and Mewis’s baby “doing backflips”, in reference to Kerr’s acrobatic goal celebrations, and said: “We’re just really happy for them both. Seeing the joy it brings to both of them, I think that’s what we’re all put on Earth for, to bring joy to one another, and we’ve not got the time of day for certain comments. Our focus is to spread happiness and support each other, regardless of everyone’s situation, and I think that’s a value of the club, a value of ours as people.”
Bompastor, speaking before Wednesday’s Women’s Champions League fixture at home to Celtic, where Chelsea will seek to extend their 100% winning start, said: “I just want to support Sam – we fully support her. This is just unacceptable to have these kinds of comments. Especially in our world, in 2024, that’s crazy for me to understand how people can react like this.
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“But I just want to focus on the positives and give all my support to Sam and Kristie, and tell them we are really proud and really happy for them. As a mum, having the opportunity to become a mum, that’s the best news you can have in your life so I just want to focus on that.”
