Calls are growing for Neale Daniher to be immediately inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame after the legendary figure lost his long-running battle with motor neurone disease.

Daniher, a revered AFL player, coach and administrator who gave a lifetime of service to the game, died on Monday at the age of 65 after a 12-year fight against the condition.

He was one of the founders of FightMND in 2014, which has gone on to invest more than $115 million into research projects towards finding treatments and an eventual cure for the terminal neurodegenerative disease.

Football is at the heart of the organisation’s efforts to raise funds and awareness, with the annual King’s Birthday game between Collingwood and Melbourne becoming the “Big Freeze” in 2015 and serving as their key event since.

On Channel Seven’s The Agenda Setters, Kane Cornes said Daniher — who was named as the Australian of the Year in 2025 — was unquestionably deserving of a swift elevation into the Hall of Fame.

“He (was inducted into) Melbourne’s Hall of Fame in 2021, he’s a legend in Essendon’s Hall of Fame. He’s not yet a member of the Australian Football Hall of Fame,” Cornes said.

“That dinner is in June. The AFL need to fast-track this induction. Neale Daniher belongs in the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

“That’s the greatest honour our game has got, and then Legend status is above that, and no one would complain if he’s an eventual Legend, but they’ve got to get him in that Hall of Fame, and it’s got to happen within a couple of weeks time.”

Cornes said he wanted to see a display honouring Daniher and FightMND, including an honour roll of people who have taken part in the Big Freeze slide, put in place at the MCG.

“Some of the names that have embraced this, from coaches to players to media figures — Nick Riewoldt, iconic — it absolutely is (football’s ultimate honour),” he said.

“What a day it has become, one of the marquee days on our calendar, all thanks to Neale and his family and what they’ve sacrificed.”

Cornes’ co-panellist Caroline Wilson highlighted Daniher’s wife Jan as an “extraordinary fighter and carer for her husband”.

“I want to pay tribute to her and her four children and the work they’ve done,” Wilson said.

“(Daughter) Bec has become the face of FightMND and continues to front up to events and functions and fundraisers and radio interviews, and it must be tough.”