The AFL was notified earlier this year that Australian Sports Brain Bank at Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital had made a CTE diagnosis in relation to former St Kilda captain and much-loved AFL identity Danny Frawley. 

The decision to donate his brain to scientific research was made by his loving family and AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan thanked Anita Frawley and daughters Chelsea, Danielle and Keeley for making that decision and to ensuring the findings would help to provide better understanding of the disease and its impact. 

Danny, who played 240 games for St Kilda, was an AFL Life member, an inductee of the St Kilda Football Club Hall of Fame, an AFL All-Australian selector and had previously coached Richmond and served as CEO of the AFL Coaches Association. More recently he served football as a popular TV and radio commentator across Fox Footy and SEN and was a passionate advocate for mental health education, particularly for men.

Mr McLachlan said Anita Frawley had rung him to tell him the results of the Brain Bank examination several months ago. 

"Danny's death last year had a profound impact on our industry. Everyone who knew Danny loved Danny" Mr McLachlan said. 

"Danny's family ensured that his passing served as a message to many people – men in particular - on the importance of listening and learning to each other and ensuring that our friends and families are coping.  In the same way his family – like the family of Graham 'Polly' Farmer – have again provided us the opportunity to continue to learn from Danny. 

"I have spoken to Anita and said we will work with the Brain Bank and other researchers to better understand this disease and its impact."

Mr McLachlan said the game had changed considerably since the days when Danny played and the AFL had made a number of changes, particularly over the past 20 years, to provide greater education and awareness and also greater on-field protection to players.   

He said the health and safety of all present, past and future players was paramount and the AFL would continue to learn and review its response as new information came to hand. 
 
"We have strengthened match-day protocols for the identification and management of concussion, we continue to change the Laws of the Game to discourage high contact and also moved earlier this season to change the Tribunal rules to more strictly sanction tackles that endanger the head. The ARC which we introduced in the last year has also provided another opportunity to identify potential concussive incidents through the use of world leading video technology," he said.
 
The AFL further strengthened the return to play aspects of the Concussion Management Guidelines for the 2020 AFL & AFLW seasons which reflects the ongoing conservative approach in managing concussions at the elite level which then feed into community football.  

"In our discussions Anita has been really clear that she wants the learnings from Danny's death to continue to provide a benefit to sport and we will continue to work with Anita and the family and researchers to learn as much as we can and to continue to make whatever changes are necessary to keep the people who play our game safe".