Forest Green are taking Peterborough to court

Details are thin on the ground. BBC Sport's report confirms Vince has gone public with the threat of legal action but doesn't lay out the exact grounds, the timeline of any approach, or whether Savage has already left Forest Green for Peterborough. What's clear is that Vince, never one to let a grievance sit quietly, has decided this is worth a legal fight rather than a private word between boardrooms.

Managerial poaching disputes aren't new in English football, but they rarely end up framed as legal action this publicly. Clubs usually sort out approaches for staff under contract through informal channels, compensation payments, or a quiet request for permission to speak. If Forest Green believe that process was skipped or ignored, a formal claim would be the next step up, and Vince naming Peterborough specifically suggests he's not interested in keeping this behind closed doors.

What might have triggered this

The obvious read is that Peterborough approached Savage, or people working for him, without going through Forest Green first. Tapping up a manager still under contract is one of the few areas of English football where the rules are genuinely strict: clubs need permission before any approach, and breaching that can open the door to compensation claims. Without more from BBC Sport on dates or specifics, it's not possible to say whether that's exactly what happened here, but it's the most straightforward explanation for why Vince is talking about lawyers rather than a strongly worded phone call.

Why this matters beyond League Two

Manager contracts in the EFL are enforceable, but enforcement usually happens quietly, through League mediation or a settlement nobody announces. Vince going public changes that. If Forest Green follow through, it could set a marker for how aggressively smaller clubs are willing to defend managerial contracts against bigger, better-resourced rivals looking to poach proven coaches on the cheap.

Peterborough United have not been quoted in the BBC Sport report, and there's no confirmation yet of their side of events. Until one of the two clubs, or Savage himself, says more, this remains Vince's version of a dispute that clearly has more chapters to come.