Almost every football fan knows the fairytale story of Leicester City winning the 2015/16 Premier League title at odds of 5000 to 1. Led by legendary manager Claudio Ranieri, they achieved the greatest honour in English football. However, having faced humiliating back-to-back relegations from the Premier League to League One, the Foxes will be trading European nights at the Bernabeu for 3pm kick-offs at Bromley.
How could a team that stood alone at the top of English football, just ten years ago, fall so far from the summit?
To first understand the dramatic downfall, we must first explore the meteoric rise. In 2010, Thai billionaire businessman and founder of King Power, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, purchased Leicester City FC – becoming chairman in 2011. Under his leadership, signings such as N’Golo Kanté and Jamie Vardy, as well as the appointment of Italian manager Claudio Ranieri, were instrumental factors in that legendary 2016 triumph.
However, Leicester then struggled to balance the demands of European football with domestic games. Less than a year after winning the league, with Leicester sitting only one point above the relegation zone, Ranieri was sacked.
Leicester recovered to 12th in the 2016/17 season, but spent the next few years cycling through managers. Then, on 27 October 2018, Srivaddhanaprabha was tragically killed in a helicopter accident after a match. Tributes came flooding in from fans and players alike, who mourned the loss of the man who led the club they love so dearly to glory. His son, Aiyawatt, took control of Leicester City.
After a handful of midfield finishes, manager Brendan Rodgers finally returned the Foxes to Europe with a 5th place finish in 2019/20. The following season, he led them to FA Cup glory, winning the trophy for the first time with a 1-0 victory over Chelsea. The good times kept rolling into the 2021/22 season, winning the FA Community Shield and making the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League. Some were making the argument that Leicester were on the verge of breaking into the established “top six” clubs in England.
Then, in late 2022, the party came to a screeching halt.
Picking up only one point in the first seven games, something was clearly wrong. Having not improved enough over the season, Rodgers was sacked on April 2nd. After four years and two trophies, the relationship was over. Replacement manager Dean Smith wasn’t able to lift them out of the relegation zone, and Leicester went down on the final day of the 2022/23 season. They became just the second former Premier League champions to be relegated.
They were able to bounce back to the Prem on the first time of asking under the leadership of Enzo Maresca. However, once the Italian was poached by Chelsea, they floundered under 3 different managers and went straight back down to the Championship. At the end of that 2024/25 season, LCFC legend and 2019/20 Golden Boot winner Jamie Vardy departed the club at the end of his contract, much to the dismay of the fans. Perhaps this was a sign of things to come.
The Foxes had a decent start to the most recent campaign – having won 3, drawn 4, and only lost one game at the end of September. This was the highest they would be all season.
The losses started coming. Winnable games slipping through their fingers. A 2-1 loss to 23rd-place Oxford United confirmed the sacking of manager Marti Cifuentes, with Leicester in 18th place at the end of January.
The word “relegation” was beginning to be thrown around, but surely not Leicester, right? “They’re far too big to go down, they’ll figure it out,” was the prevailing opinion amongst Championship fans.
If they had any chance of bouncing back, a 6-point deduction due to breaching the league’s Profit and Sustainability Rules stopped those hopes dead in their tracks. The following week, a loss against Southampton consigned them to the relegation zone, where they would stay for the rest of the season. Major “KING POWER OUT” protests were organised against the ownership, the same ownership that was once beloved by fans and players alike.
Their relegation was confirmed after a 2-2 draw to Hull at the King Power Stadium.
With back-to-back relegations comes a major loss in revenue, and time will tell just how detrimental that will be to the club. A major overhaul of players will be needed, with many of the squad still on Premier League wages. Furthermore, the running of a £100 million training ground won’t be cheap.
As a fan of a Championship club myself, the dynamic nature of the division is what makes me love it. 22nd place can beat 2nd, unexpected teams can make deep playoff pushes, and teams who used to spend their Thursday evenings in Sevilla and Milan, now must spend them in Stevenage and Mansfield.
