Forest Green Seek £2m From Peterborough and Robbie Savage Over Manager's Departure

Forest Green announce legal action

Forest Green Rovers have begun a legal process over Robbie Savage's departure to Peterborough United, with owner Dale Vince seeking £2m from the League One club and its new manager. Vince disclosed the action during an appearance on Sky Sports News on Friday 30 October, confirming that the dispute over Savage's move had not been resolved and saying the legal process had begun the previous week.

He said Forest Green were pursuing £2m, which he described as the buyout clause in Savage's contract, and alleged that the club had been deprived of that payment following an improper approach. In the same interview he said further evidence had emerged concerning contact between MacAnthony and Savage before the manager's departure.

The allegations are disputed. Peterborough declined to comment on the announcement when contacted on 30 October, and MacAnthony's earlier account remains the club's publicly reported position. The £2m is the amount Forest Green say they are seeking, rather than an agreed payment or an established liability, and no publicly accessible judgment determining the dispute has been identified.

What £2m means at a National League club

Forest Green's accounts for 2025, covering their first year back in the National League, record turnover of £7.248m, down from £7.935m, and a loss before tax of £2,993,225 against £3,270,424 the year before. The club has lost money three years running: roughly £1.3m in 2023, £3.27m in 2024 and £2.99m in 2025, a little over £7.5m in total.

Set the claim against those figures and its scale becomes clear. £2m is 27.6% of a full year's turnover and 66.8% of last year's pre-tax loss. Whatever the merits of the dispute, a buyout provision of that size attached to one manager's contract is a material item for a club of Forest Green's size, and that is the reason the figure is worth examining rather than simply reporting.

It also locates Forest Green precisely. Turnover above £7m is high for the fifth tier and reflects a cost and revenue base built in the EFL rather than in the National League. Liquidity risk management rests with the executive directors of the ultimate parent, Green Britain Group Limited. Club director Asif Rehmanwala said the club was exploring new commercial opportunities and described the revenue risk attached to relegation as "deemed very unlikely" on current form.

The move from Forest Green to Peterborough

Savage joined Forest Green on 1 July 2025, having been Macclesfield head coach from June 2024, where his record was 40 wins, six draws and five defeats in 51 matches and the club clinched promotion to National League North in March 2025 as Northern Premier League Premier Division champions. He was reported at the time of his Forest Green appointment to be signing a four-year deal. In his first season he took the club to seventh in the National League on 81 points, with the campaign ending in a 1–0 extra-time defeat at Boreham Wood in the play-off qualifying round on 29 April 2026. His Forest Green record stood at 31 wins, 13 draws and 18 defeats in 62 matches to early September.

Savage remained in charge at the start of the 2026/27 season before Peterborough identified him as a replacement for Luke Williams, dismissed on 19 September after a home defeat by Doncaster with the club second from bottom of League One. Reports of Peterborough's interest emerged in late September, and on 29 September Forest Green issued a statement confirming that Savage had been given permission to speak to them. Vince said the manager wanted to leave for personal reasons, which the club understood and respected, that Savage had been offered the Peterborough job, and that the clubs were negotiating the terms of his departure. Peterborough disputed the suggestion that a formal offer had already been made.

The Peterborough Telegraph reported on 1 October that a compensation dispute was delaying the appointment, and Savage was formally appointed the following day.

A nominal fee, or £2m

The clearest point of conflict is not about permission at all. It is about what changed hands.

On 7 October, five days after the appointment and three days before the row became public, MacAnthony said Peterborough had settled the matter: "Eventually we paid a nominal release fee and we are delighted." Three weeks later Vince announced a £2m claim over a buyout clause he says the club was deprived of receiving.

Both statements describe the same transaction. One characterises it as closed on nominal terms; the other treats it as unpaid in substance. Neither has been independently established, the contract has not been published, and no figure for any release fee has been disclosed. But the distance between "nominal" and £2m is the dispute, and it is a distance of some size for a club whose entire annual turnover is £7.248m.

Two accounts that do not reconcile

The disagreement became public on 10 October, when Vince told BBC Radio Gloucestershire, before Forest Green's 4–2 home defeat by Hartlepool, that Peterborough had asked for permission to speak to Savage and that Forest Green had refused, with the club contacting the manager anyway. He described it as a "wrong, improper approach — I'm just going to say that again," said "so that's an illegal approach, right?", and that "Peterborough themselves, they've covered themselves in no glory here." He said Savage had "come to see me, very upset, intense personal issues that required him to go looking for another job," and that Forest Green had let him go because "we cared more about Robbie than we cared about that outcome." MacAnthony denied wrongdoing that evening, maintaining that the appointment process had followed the rules.

The exchange continued on 12 October. In a response reported by the Peterborough Telegraph, MacAnthony said director of football Barry Fry had contacted Forest Green's Mark Bowen to request permission to interview Savage, that Forest Green had sent three emails concerning compensation before granting it, and that "nobody at my club offered your manager an interview until official permission was granted for the interview." He denied that either he or Fry would approach another club's manager without permission. Vince returned to the subject on 13 October, maintaining that Fry's initial request had been refused and that contact with Savage followed.

The two accounts are not reconcilable on the public record. Each describes a different sequence around the same events, and the documents that would settle it — the correspondence between the clubs, and any record of contact with Savage — have not been published. No independent finding that an unauthorised approach occurred has been made.

What the claim rests on

During his Sky Sports News appearance Vince identified the £2m as the buyout amount contained in Savage's contract. That document has not been published. Forest Green have not released the relevant clause, the precise terms of Savage's departure or the legal documents underpinning the claim, so it is not possible to establish from the public record how the provision operated, what triggered it, or which contractual obligations Forest Green allege were breached.

The reported figure is nevertheless significant because managerial compensation arrangements are seldom disclosed at any level, and almost never in the fifth tier. Savage's departure came 15 months into the contract he was reported to have signed. Peterborough's position, stated publicly on 7 October, is that a nominal release fee was paid; Forest Green's position, stated on 30 October, is that the club is entitled to pursue £2m arising from the circumstances of the departure. Peterborough have not accepted that liability.

The chronology

Forest Green's 29 September statement is the key document, because it records the club's own public position at the time. It confirms that Savage was permitted to speak to Peterborough, and it does not address whether any contact occurred beforehand.

The dispute remains unresolved

As of 2 November, Forest Green's £2m claim is unresolved. Vince has publicly identified both Peterborough United and Savage as parties against whom the club is acting, and has said the amount corresponds to the buyout clause in Savage's employment agreement. Peterborough deny an improper approach, say a nominal release fee was paid, and declined to comment on the announcement of legal action. The court, claim number and pleadings have not been established in the public reporting.

There has been no confirmed court award or settlement of the £2m. The next substantive development will be further disclosure of the proceedings, an official response from the parties, or confirmation that the dispute has been resolved. For now the established financial position is straightforward: a tier-five club is pursuing a sum equal to more than a quarter of its annual turnover over its former manager's move to a tier-three club, against a buyer who says the matter was already settled for a nominal fee.

Disclosure: Peterborough United is a commercial partner of The Pyramid. This relationship has no bearing on the publication's independent editorial coverage.