Robbie Savage speaks out over transfer heartbreak

One of football's toughest competitors has spoken openly of his distress at his club's refusal to grant him the transfer that would allow him to be closer to his loved ones.

Birmingham City's Robbie Savage is known throughout the game as one the Premier League's most uncompromising players but he has been reduced to a quivering wreck in recent weeks. Based in the Midlands and forced to live hundreds of miles away from a potential £30,000 a week contract in Lancashire the midfield enforcer is understood to be in a weak emotional state.

Faced with the offer from Blackburn Rovers of a large sum of money being deposited ever month is his Halifax Xtra Saver account, the sensitive Savage has been reduced to tears. "I just want to be nearer to that large amount of money," he sobbed to reporters. "My bank account has been getting sicker by the day. If I can't get to its bedside soon, then I fear the worst."

So moved has he been by his own plight that Savage has just recently requested a transfer. "I hope people can see how much this must mean to me," he blubbed while tripping up a passing old lady and giving a nearby man reading a paper a touch of the classic "finger in the eye" treatment.

Most Birmingham fans are proving sympathetic. "We've measured the distance from Robbie's present bank balance to the nearest next million quid and it is quite a way," admitted one.

And Savage's own parents have pleaded for their son to be allowed to act as "the greedy bastard we raised him to be. If he's near to us then we can keep an eye on him and his currently cleared funds."

Previously

• Rogue football agent shames the Beautiful Game™
• Beckham transfer news famine shocks sport desks
• Those Premiership transfer plans in full