Adam Goodes was unanimously voted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame at the first opportunity but the retired Swans great has knocked back the honour.
Booed out of the game in 2015 in response to his stance on racial issues, Goodes has had little to no association with football since winding up his decorated playing career.
Now eligible after being retired for five years, the Herald Sun reports Goodes turned down the offer after he was unanimously voted in.
AFL Commission boss Richard Goyder confirmed the news, but added Goodes had asked the AFL not make his decison public.
"Adam had asked the AFL to wait before announcing his decision, which has now been made public separately," Goyder said.
"Adam was clear he did not want his decision to detract from the moment for the 2021 inductees.
"Adam remains a great champion and leader of our game who has given more to our sport than he received in return.
"The treatment of Adam in his final years at AFL level drove him from football. The AFL and our game did not do enough to stand with him at the time, and call it out.
"The unreserved apology that the game provided him in 2019 was too late, but, on behalf of our Commission and the AFL, I apologise unreservedly again for our failures during this period.
"Failure to call out racism and not standing up for Adam let down all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players, past and present.
"We hope that there will be a time in the future when Adam will want to be connected to the game again. This is a decision for Adam and Adam only and we understand and respect his choice."
Speaking on Tuesday following the news, 2000 Hall of Fame inductee Tim Watson said he hoped time would have healed the hurt, but he understands why the two-time Brownlow Medal winner feels the way he does.
"I thought that in that five years there might have been that repatriation had taken place and the damage that occurred at that time, I thought it might have eased on him mentally and he might have been able to repair some of those bridges between himself and the game," Watson said on SEN.
"We always say that time is a great healer, I just thought that the time may have healed all those differences.
"Clearly it hasn't, that's his right not to accept an induction if that's the way that he feels.
"I'm sad that it cut him so deeply that five years on he feels like he doesn't have a place in AFL football."
For the final 18 months of his career, Goodes was routinely booed by opposition crowds, largely in response to his calling out of an instance of racial abuse in a match against Collingwood in 2013.
He was named Australian of the Year in 2014 and used his speech as an opportunity to call for racial equality.
Goodes' sad exit from the game was highlighted again in 2019 when two documentaries - The Final Quarter and The Australian Dream - again brought to light the treatment the two-time premiership winner received.
The AFL released a statement at the time to "apologise unreservedly for our failures during this period."
Watson's co-host Garry Lyon defended Goodes' decision to reject the induction.
"It's absolute his right to accept or not," Lyon said.
"You can only understand if you were able to speak to Adam personally.
"He's the only one that could tell us why and how deep the hurt was and the impact that it had on his life.
"I'm really disappointed for him that in his mindset he still doesn't feel like he can receive the adulation that he deserves as a footballer."
