Socceroos legend Robbie Slater does not regret his controversial column surrounding Sam Kerr and admitted he was “surprised” by the reaction to it.
Slater penned a piece for The Daily Telegraph in January 2022 just after Kerr broke Tim Cahill’s record for most goals scored by an Australian player both male and female.
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However, the former Premier League winner attracted criticism for stating Kerr shouldn’t be proclaimed as such and that Kerr and Cahill’s records should be separated.
In the Matildas documentary, a snippet shows Kerr branding the “not equal” headline of Slater’s column “literally the most sexist thing you could say.”
Speaking on The Back Page, Slater doubled down on his column and felt it was “balanced” but Candice Warner did not share that same stance.
“Robbie, I don’t really agree with you,” Warner said.
“I thought it was out of line. You’ve got two young daughters. I thought it was incredibly sexist.
“What are you saying to young girls who might be aspiring [to be professional footballers]?”
Warner then followed up by asking if Slater regretted his column.
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Slater replied: “I don’t regret the column because I stand by that I separated Tim Cahill from Sam Kerr and said Tim’s our greatest ever Socceroo goalscorer and Sam is our greatest ever women’s goalscorer.
“I don’t think that was out of line.
“But if I listened to my 9 year old daughter, maybe I did do wrong. She came up to me and said, ‘Dad, what have you done to Sam Kerr, she’s so much better than you?’ She’s got a poster of Sam Kerr on the wall.
“I’ve had to answer some questions. But I think the column was balanced.”
Slater, who remains a “big fan” of Kerr, further explained his decision to pen the column before he was cheekily interrupted by a text from his young daughter.
“The whole conversation started when Sam scored a goal more, now she’s got much more, than Tim Cahill had scored for the Socceroos,” Slater said.
“I just wrote a column separating the two. There’s A-League women’s, you’ve got A-League men’s, I don’t know, I just thought it was confusing everything. They’re all great, they’re both great.
“Hang on. Indigo: you’re still a loser, dad.”