Collingwood president and Footy Show host Eddie McGuire has labelled an AFL selection committee "gutless", saying it has breached its duty of care in including fallen star Gary Ablett in the Hall of Fame.

"They have botched this up from start to finish," McGuire said.

Ablett, regarded as one of the game's all time greats, has been shunned for the Hall of Fame for the past four years amid controversy about the death of a young woman from a drug overdose in 2000.

Ablett had given Alisha Horan heroin and ecstasy and she died in his company after spending the night with him in a Melbourne hotel room.

McGuire said the selection committee had failed to consider the Horan family in its decision, particularly give the criteria for a Hall of Fame member.

"Record, ability, integrity, sportsmanship and character ... that's the criteria," McGuire said on Channel Nine's Footy Show.

"The AFL now must come out and, I think, get rid of their selectors because they have breached their duty of care in filling that criteria, they have totally disregarded it.

"They should have said, `for Gary Ablett to get within a hundred miles of this he has to show improvement in these areas'," he said.

"What I think the AFL must do to have any credibility on this matter is tear up their selection criteria, because they're selection committee already has, tear it up and start again and base it on football if that's going to be the case.

"If you're going to base it on credibility and character and integrity and all those lovely things we like to have in society then you can't pick these people."

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