Sir Mo Farah’s teacher Alan Watkinson has admitted the revelation that the Olympic legend was trafficked into the UK as a child was ‘a real bombshell’.
BBC documentary The Real Mo Farah sees Farah try and find answers about his past, after it was revealed he was trafficked into the UK at just nine years old, sent to Britain illegally and was treated like a servant by the family he initially lived with.
Farah also revealed that his name is not Mohamed Farah, and he has been using the name of another child for most of his life.
Reflecting on Farah’s story, his school PE teacher, Watkinson who knew his true backstory and continued to support the young athlete as he trained to become one of the world’s greatest sportspeople, admitted: ‘It was a real bombshell.’
He added to Good Morning Britain hosts Ben Shephard and Ranvir Singh: ‘He has always been the person that you see in the documentary… that’s who he is.’
He continued: ‘I’ve known him for a considerable amount of time. He is such a generous and lovely guy. You always forgive him for everything because he turns up with a great smile on his face and is such engaging company.
‘I think you’ll probably see more of him, the guard will be lifted. You’ll see Mo for what he is.’
On the moment Farah told him he wanted to tell the truth about his background, Watkinson admitted: ‘It was an interesting moment because I know that a lot of his friends were saying to him, “Are you sure? Do you really want to do this? Can’t you just leave it alone? This could cause you all sorts of problems.’”
He added: ‘I know Mo, when he decides he wants to do something, he more often than not goes ahead and does it. And more often than not his instinct is right.’
Watkinson added that he didn’t advise Farah against doing it, saying: ‘I talked to him and listened to him, I knew from what he said to me that he had to do it.’
On seeing Farah tell the world a story about his history that wasn’t true, Watkinson admitted it was ‘Really difficult,’ but there was ‘no other option’.
‘The progress he was making as an athlete, the knowledge that if this story came out at any particular time, what would that mean for him?
‘He, I believe, locked that away because he wanted to focus on the thing that drove him.’
Watkinson also spoke about what Farah was like at school, saying: ‘In PE and sport, he came alive because that was the way he could express himself. That was the one enjoyment that he had, so I saw a very different side to him that other people saw.
‘He was quite aggressive in his first year at school, he had no access to the curriculum because he couldn’t speak the language, he had a really, really difficult time.’
The bond between Farah and Watkinson is explored in the documentary, which shows how much help Farah received from his PE teacher.
As they built trust together, Farah – then still a child – confided in Watkinson about how he had been trafficked into the UK and forced to work for the strangers who had taken him in.
Watkinson secretly assisted Farah, contacting social services and helping him to be fostered by another Somali family, and from that moment, Farah said, ‘everything got better.’
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV & ITV Hub.
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