By Thai Newsroom Reporters
THE THAI-OWNED Leicester are currently on the brink of relegation from the Championship, the second tier of the English football system, to the third-tiered League One upon the end of the 2025/2026 season after they were just relegated from the top-flight Premier League last season.
With only eight games to go until the end of the current season, the Foxes are significantly struggling to stay up in the second-tiered Championship after they were given points deduction due to a breach which they already committed to the English Football League’s Profit and Sustainability rules, hefty financial debt, budget constraints and the low morale of most squad members.
Leicester reportedly sustained over 200 million pounds in losses since the 2023/2024 season, exceeding a maximum limit of 81 million pounds over a consecutive, three-year span provided under the EFL rules, thus warranting the six-points deduction.
Leicester are obviously diving headlong into League One, given current poor form of the players under manager Gary Rowett with a sheer defeat in the latest home game against Queens Park Rangers at King Power stadium and it will be up to anyone’s guess as to whether the Foxes could possibly grab a point either from a scored or scoreless draw in the upcoming Saturday’s away game against Watford.
Chances for the Foxes to keep themselves from being relegated to the humiliating third tier are currently less than 50% in comparison to four other football clubs who are also scrambling to stay up in the second tier, namely Blackburn, Portsmouth, West Bromwich Albion and Oxford. Out of the five sides including the Foxes, three will stay up and two will go down upon the end of the current season scheduled for the first weekend of the upcoming May.
The other Championship club officially relegated, albeit currently existing among the second-tiered sides only to play out the season’s fixtures, are the previously Thai-owned Sheffield Wednesday.
Though Leicester today have 38 points and are merely two points cleared from the relegation zone, all other drop-risking rivals are struggling to survive with a few points more than the Foxes who will play away games against the fellow drop-risking sides the Pompey and the Rovers toward the end of the current season.
However, Leicester’s Thai owner/chair Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha has remained non-committal to his club’s foreseeable future apart from the naming of a little-known Kamonthip Netthanomsak as the club’s interim managing director since his club had financial difficulties and sustained a losing streak showcasing the low morale and poor performance on the part of the first-team squad with Ricardo Pereira as gaffer, oblivious to the 2015/2016 season when they unexpectedly won the Premier League title for the first time in the East Midlands club’s history.
In effort to reduce wages borne by the financially ailing club, a “fire sale” of highly-paid players is largely anticipated at King Power stadium in the upcoming summer transfer market including the likes of a Ghanaian pair – striker Jordan Ayew and winger Abdul Fatawu, among others, whilst most loanee players will be returned to their original clubs without possible negotiations for a contract to stay put, no matter if the Foxes will be eventually relegated or not.
The Foxes would probably be relegated for a second time in a matter of three years in a row after they had been relegated from the Premier League in 2023 and stayed in the Championship for one season before they returned to the top tier in 2024 to stay only for one season as well.
Many Foxes fans have bluntly suggested that Aiyawatt stop running around in vain to salvage Leicester from a looming downfall and simply sell up the club who have handed out a lot of funds in the interests of the East Midlands community.
Back home in Thailand, Aiyawatt’s King Power International Group, the main pockets for the Foxes, called on the Airports of Thailand to alleviate contractual obligations and provide relief measures for the previously-thriving, now-sharply declining, duty-free sales of merchandise for tourists at Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports so that part of the profits could be hopefully provided for his cash-strapped football club in England.
CAPTIONS:
Top – Stephy Mavididi (right) of Leicester City in action with Harvey Vale of Queens Park Rangers. Photo by Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images and published by LeicestershireLive
Insert – Leicester’s Thai owner/chair Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha. Photo – Skysports
Front Page – Leicester City v Queens Park Rangers – Sky Bet Championship – King Power Stadium | Lee Keuneke – PA Images/GettyImages and published by Yahoo!News
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