Sydney Swans legend Adam Goodes has rejected an offer to be inducted into the AFL Hall Of Fame, after he was nominated by the entire committee.
As per the Herald Sun, Goodes was voted for unanimously by the Hall Of Fame committee in his first year of being eligible for the honours, now that he’s clocked five years of retirement from the AFL.
Goodes has turned down the offer to be honoured following the way he was treated by the football community and the league itself over his final seasons in the sport.
Goodes, a dual premiership and four-time All-Australian player who also holds two Brownlow medals, was named in the Indigenous Team of the Century and represented Australia in the International Rules series, retired from the game on his own terms at the end of the 2015 season.
Following an incident of racism during the 2013 Indigenous round where a young girl called Goodes an “ape” and was ejected from the game by security, Goodes was further racially vilified by former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire on radio just days after the 2013 incident, and relentlessly harassed and booed by spectators for the remainder of his career.
The abuse hurled at him week in week out pushed Goodes to take indefinite leave in mid 2015, before officially retiring at the end of the Swans’ season that year following a semi-final loss to North Melbourne.
In 2016, AFL’s CEO Gillon McLachlan finally recognised the lack of action from the league around the way Goodes was treated, and the entire league and all 18 clubs issued a joint apology to Goodes in 2019 for not supporting and backing him during his last seasons.
It’s almost unsurprising that Goodes has turned down the unanimous nomination to be inducted into the AFL Hall Of Fame, a clear sign that he’s continuing to live his life on his own terms.
