Managing starvation in a distributed arbitration scheme including sending, by a starved local arbiter, a starvation message toward a head arbiter, wherein the starvation message comprises an identifier of the starved local arbiter and a request for resources to transfer data to a destination, wherein the requested resources comprise a destination token and a bus slot; receiving, by a neighboring local arbiter, the starvation message, wherein the neighboring local arbiter is between the starved local arbiter and the head arbiter; if the neighboring local arbiter currently has the resources requested in the starvation message: marking, by the neighboring local arbiter, the requested resources with the identifier of the starved local arbiter.