FARAH IN BUST-UP

Beaten Mo split with his ‘right-hand man’ before championships

SIR MO FARAH had a major falling-out with a key member of his inner circle in the build-up to the World Athletics Championships, essentially terminating his professional relationship with the senior UK Athletics official assigned to support him for more than four years.

Farah (right) lost his first major final in six years when he was beaten by Ethiopia’s Muktar Edris over 5,000m on Saturday night and Sportsmail can reveal that the setback came amid turmoil in his management team.

Barry Fudge is the head of endurance at British Athletics and has worked closely with Farah and his coach, Alberto Salazar, often deputising for the American in running the distance star’s training programmes and also acting as a liaison between the governing body and the Salazar-run Nike Oregon Project. Farah once referred to Fudge as his ‘right-hand man’.

On the day Farah accused sections of the media of trying to ‘destroy’ his legacy, sources confirmed that he and Fudge split in the last two months, raising the question of who will be guiding the 34-year-old as he embarks on a full-time marathon career.

There has been a clear attempt by Farah’s representatives to put some distance between the fourtime Olympic champion and Salazar when the latter remains under investigation by the American anti- doping authorities, with Fudge tipped to play a more significant role once Farah retires from track.

Over the last four years Fudge has made huge sacrifices to support Far a h , spending long spells in Oregon, where the distance runner is based, as well as other overseas training camps.

But in the build-up to these championships Farah worked with David Harmer, who is a British Athletics endurance coach. Insiders believe Salazar is still writing the training programmes and passing instructions to Harmer. Exactly what sparked the split between Farah and Fudge is unclear but they had become extremely close. Sources believe the timing of the falling-out coincided with the leaking last month of an IAAF document that listed Farah as ‘likely doping’. Farah was in angry mood yesterday as questions about being beaten by Edris turned to the issues his PR team have tried so hard to keep off the agenda. He delivered an impassioned defence of his considerable achievements when it was suggested that his legacy was harmed. Of concern is his ongoing association with a coach at the centre of an American doping investigation — and his links to another coach who was busted by the Spanish police and anti-doping officials who found EPO in a hotel room. And before anyone could mention the ‘likely doping’ note, or an infusion before the 2014 London Marathon of which a UKA doctor had failed to keep a proper record, he was gone.

‘It’s like a broken record, repeating myself,’ he said dismissively. ‘Why bring it up year after year, making it into headlines? I’ve achieved what I have achieved — you’re trying to destroy it.

‘The fact is I’ve achieved what I have from hard work, putting my balls on the line, year after year and delivering for my country.

‘There’s nothing else to be said. History doesn’t lie. I find it bizarre how certain people write certain things to suit how they want to sell the story.

‘I want you to write the truth about what’s out there and educate every single person out there. But be honest with them. If I have crossed the line, if Mo Farah has done something wrong, then prove it.’

Part of the problem is Farah’s tendency to distort the facts.

Asked to describe the status of his relationship with Salazar, Farah was evasive yesterday. Would the American former marathon champion be coaching him in his future career on the roads? ‘I haven’t thought that far ahead,’ Farah said.