Malbranque hasn’t ‘quit to care for sick child’

STEED MALBRANQUE’s representatives have dismissed reports the former Fulham, Tottenham and Sunderland midfielder has retired from football to care for an ill family member.

Reports emerging from France over the weekend, and repeated in a number of British publications, claimed that the 31-year-old, who joined French outfit St Etienne this summer, had decided to quit as his young son was suffering from cancer.

But a statement from solicitors working on the instruction of Malbranque’s agent, Sebastien Boisseau, make it clear that the Frenchman does not have a son and that no member of his immediate family is in ill health.