The Australian football star Sam Kerr is engaged to her partner and fellow professional player, Kristie Mewis. Mewis confirmed the news in People magazine, after several weeks of speculation fuelled in part by social posts featuring her wearing a diamond ring on her engagement finger. Matildas star striker Kerr, 30, and Mewis, 32, have been together since 2021. Mewis said that along with her parents and sister, Kerr had “just been everything” to her. “My biggest supporter, always listening to me nag and complain all, all of my crazy antics,” she said. The couple have been in a long-distance relationship, as Kerr plays for Chelsea in the WSL, and Mewis for Gotham FC in the US league, the NWSL. “I think the thing that keeps us going is that we can see an end point,” Kerr said in an interview last year. “We both just want each other to do so well in our careers. I don’t think you could be in a long-distance relationship with someone who didn’t get the sport. She fully gets it and I get it. So we just support each other.” Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup The pair have previously spoken about the importance of sharing their relationship on social media to normalise “being two girls in love”. Kerr is a rampaging forward considered Australia’s greatest ever player, while Mewis is a midfielder for the US. The pair both represented their countries at the recent World Cup, with Kerr hampered by a calf injury before scoring one of the goals of the tournament in a semi-final loss to England, and Mewis not featuring during the group stages but converting during a penalty shoot out after coming on late as a substitute in the defending champion’s shock loss to Sweden in the round of 16. Mewis posted a photo of her wearing what appeared to be a diamond engagement ring on Instagram in October, prompting responses from Kerr’s international teammate Mackenzie Arnold and others, who dubbed her “Australia’s first lady”.