Danny Mills can already imagine the headlines. “They’ll say, ‘Like father, like son,'” he says. “But he’ll have to take it easy.”

The former Leeds United and England footballer speaks about a dramatic men’s 5,000m race at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where his son George appeared to have been brought down by the home team favourite. The Frenchman Hugo Haywhich caused him to stumble.

Mills seemed to have his place in the final secured, but he fell as a result of this contact and missed out on an automatic qualifying place. An angry Mills stormed towards Hay immediately after the race, jabbing a finger at his competitor and then angrily poking him in the chest with another.

Fortunately for Mills, he was reinstated in the competition along with other crashers who quit the race after officials ruled he had been at a significant disadvantage, giving him a place in Saturday’s 5,000-meter final. But anyone who watched soccer in the 1990s will know about the elder Mills’ habit of getting lost in brawls.

And Danny, now 47, was not surprised by his son’s reaction at the Stade de France and says he would have been much more aggressive in such a situation. “I would have reacted much worse,” he says The athlete“I would have been automatically disqualified and probably arrested!”

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