Leicester City’s relegation is entirely their own making – and the worst is yet to come
Leicester City have been relegated to League One for just the second time in the club’s 142-year history, marking their first ever back-to-back relegations.
A decade on from winning the Premier League title in miraculous circumstances – a fairytale befitting any Disney script – Leicester find themselves staring into the abyss.
But how did we get here? How did a club that was held up as the pinnacle of sporting achievement, a role model with the blueprint for others to follow, fall so far, so fast?
It’s a question many non-Leicester fans have been asking. The answer is multifaceted, but inevitably boils down to a deep-rooted, systemic structure of failure, put in place by the owner, Khun Top, and overseen by his recently promoted Chief Football Officer, Jon Rudkin.
Incompetence From The ‘Top’
Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha – known to many simply as Top – took over the reins of Leicester City Football Club in 2018, following the tragic passing of his father, Vichai.
The son of a multi-billionaire, Top inherited his father’s empire, spearheaded by the Thai duty-free business King Power.
What’s become painfully apparent over the ensuing years is that Top is not his father. What he’s inherited in assets clearly has not translated to the inheritance of strong business acumen or sound judgement.
Never has this been more evident than in his relationship with Rudkin, a former academy coach who’s worked his way up the ranks, and now resides as the most influential and powerful figure at the club behind only Top himself.
The pair are very close, forming an even stronger bond in the wake of Vichai’s death, one that has ensured emotional sentiment outweighs any in-role performance reviews.
Rudkin has delivered what can only be described as years of catastrophic decisions – spanning player recruitment, contract negotiations, and managerial appointments – which have collectively culminated in hundreds of millions in losses, the club receiving its first ever points deduction for breaching PSR, and those aforementioned consecutive relegations.
It has also culminated in a promotion for Rudkin, announced earlier this season. Part of the club’s ‘leadership restructure’, it consisted of two internal reshuffles alongside the appointment of a new Sporting Director, who will report directly to Rudkin.
This is the heart of the problem: failure at Leicester is not only unaccountable, it’s actively rewarded.
“There has to be a real look into what’s gone wrong,” title-winning captain from 2016 Wes Morgan told talkSPORT Breakfast on Tuesday morning. “Where can we [Leicester] get that identity back?”
The answer to Morgan’s first question is obvious. The answer to his second now only seems possible if Top relinquishes control of the club and sells up.
That’s because a club’s identity extends beyond the manager in the dugout and players on the pitch. It’s about the connection with its fanbase, the way it treats its employees, and the overall values and morals it upholds.
Under Top’s ownership, Leicester have abjectly failed at every single one of these.
Years of radio silence was punctuated this season by an incredibly naive interview, where he spoke about still not fully understanding the cause of Leicester’s 2023 Premier League relegation, and how if the Foxes aren’t promoted this season they’ll simply ‘promote next season’.
These alarming words were further compounded by informing staff they wouldn’t be paid before Christmas at just a few days notice, and a front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with a crypto casino company not legally licensed to operate in the U.K.
The list of failings under Top’s watch is almost endless, with the above offering a small insight into why fans have lost faith in their droves.
It follows a recent survey from the Foxes Trust, the supporters’ society, where ‘Disillusioned, Distant, Disconnected and Disappointed’ were among the top words used by fans to describe their current relationship with the club.
The Hull City match was supporters’ third organised protest against the ownership this season alone, at least for those who haven’t already chosen to stay away out of pure apathy.
Overpaid, Underperforming Mercenaries
While events and decisions off the pitch have contributed to the malaise on it, there are still no illusions that this is an incredibly expensive group of players who have drastically underachieved.
No money was spent on transfers this season – although that hasn’t stopped the club reportedly racking up the division’s third-highest spend on agent fees – but this remains a vastly experienced squad who comfortably top the Championship for its highest wage bill.
What’s transpired has been a group of individuals, struggling to make sense of any kind of gameplan, committing a litany of cardinal sins week in, week out.
The errors leading to goals conceded, the gilt-edged chances spurned, the sorry attempts at both attacking and defending set pieces. All of it has led many to dub this Leicester side the worst in its history.
A lack of ability is forgivable. Older fans have watched plenty of lesser-talented squads over the years, but one thing that’s often underpinned them has been an unrelenting work ethic and underdog spirit.
That mentality could not be further from what fans are now witnessing.
By almost every conceivable metric related to effort, Leicester find themselves in the Championship’s bottom three this season.
The stats are damning enough, but supporters also feel the players have largely treated them with contempt. Offering fans little in the way of an apology or explanation, and in Harry Winks’ case, actively abusing them.
“Their performance on the field is abhorrent,” Simon Jordan noted on Tuesday’s White and Jordan show, “way beneath the quality of the playing squad that they’ve got.
“It’s totally and utterly unacceptable, the players have no excuse. They can’t hide behind the six-point penalty because even that being reinstated would put them in the bottom three.”
Just four years on from competing in a European semi-final, Leicester have been left with a revolving door of managers, each offering divergent playing styles, and a poorly assembled, wildly overpaid squad who’ve made a mockery of the club’s motto: The Foxes Never Quit.
A Grim And Uncertain Future
So where does this leave Leicester?
The club finds itself in the third division of English football for only the second time. The 2008/09 season provided a much-needed reset, seeing The Foxes bounce back at the first time of asking by winning the league. The outlook this time, however, feels very different.
Operating with crippling overhead costs – including but not limited to player wages, a 32,000-capacity stadium, and their state-of-the-art training facility – a Women’s team and Category One academy to fund, and all with a fraction of the revenue coming in, the situation is bleak.
Leicester’s parachute payments from their Premier League relegation are already tied up in loan deals with Australian bank Macquarie, and King Power is experiencing its own financial turmoil, through a combination of after-effects from the global pandemic, a decline in Chinese tourism, and disputes over their duty-free monopoly.
The immediate fear lies in receiving another points deduction, similar to the predicament Sheffield Wednesday find themselves in.
“The Premier League and EFL were both keen to effectively hit Leicester quite hard because of what happened with the 2022-23 situation, which they effectively got away with,” explained Football finance expert Stefan Borson on talkSPORT Drive recently.
“Certainly, the Premier League were asking for much higher than six points in this case, even though this is now more about a club breaching EFL rules in the EFL.”
Points deductions aside, graver concerns surround the long-term future of the club, and whether Leicester can afford to stay afloat.
A fire sale of the playing squad will be required at the very least this summer, if not full on asset stripping. Sales of the stadium, training ground, or Women’s team in addition to multiple redundancies can’t be taken off the table.
What’s left will be a disillusioned, resentful fanbase, a playing squad consisting of young academy graduates and those determined to squeeze every last penny out of their remaining contracts, and a distant owner who’s lost all sense of the spiraling situation.
In the club’s 142-year history, this relegation undoubtedly marks its nadir.
What's Your Reaction?
Like
0
Dislike
0
Love
0
Funny
0
Angry
0
Sad
0
Wow
0
