‘Really fitting’: AFL to honour Ron Barassi on grand final day with ‘magnificent’ new award

The AFL is set to honour the legacy of Ron Barassi by awarding a special medal in his name to the premiership captain on grand final day.

The proposal could be implemented as early as this year, according to the Herald Sun’s Glenn McFarlane.

McFarlane said the league has been working closely with the Barassi family to find a way in which his long-lasting legacy can be immortalised.

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“We’ve been waiting for this for a while haven’t we, since Ron passed away in September last year, the AFL are set to honour him and his legacy and leadership with a medal that will be presented on grand final day,” McFarlane told Fox Footy’s Midweek Tackle.

“It will go to the premiership skipper, which I think is fairly appropriate given that Ron was twice a premiership skipper with Melbourne. He was also a vice-captain of Melbourne through two premierships as well.”

There were calls across the industry to nickname the premiership medallions given out to every player “The Barassi’s” but McFarlane revealed the Ron Barassi Medal would only be awarded to the winning captain.

“He used to sign his signature 17, 4, 10 and that’s for 17 grand finals, four clubs and ten premierships, how amazing is that?” McFarlane said.

“It’s not over the line yet, but we’re pretty sure it’s going to happen this year. Prototypes have already been looked at including Ron’s image on the medal.”

McFarlane said the winning captain will still get a premiership medal as well.

“We needed to do something, we’ve been waiting for a while with this,” he said.

McFarlane’s colleague, Jon Ralph, asked why the AFL hadn’t named the premiership cup after Barassi.

“There was one man opposed to it… that was Ron Barassi himself. He didn’t want it to be named after him. He thought that it was a situation where it needed to be, not named. Ron thought that it wasn’t appropriate,” McFarlane said.

Other sports have named their premiership cup equivalents after iconic figures in the game, such as the NFL’s Vince Lombardi trophy.

“It is a really fitting way and it’ll be magnificent. We’ve got the Jock McHale medal, the Norm Smith medal,” he said.

“We’ll get premiership captains of past years who will go back and present which will be fantastic,” Ralph replied.

The AFL grand final will be held on Saturday September 28 this season.