As we approach the eighth anniversary of Leicester’s Premier League miracle, the club is facing a problem.
Good Friday’s loss to Bristol City was the Foxes’ sixth in eight games, placing them outside of the Championship’s automatic promotion places after leading by 17 points earlier in the season.
For any club, passing on an immediate return to the Premier League would be a major problem, but for Leicester, it may be the difference between operational stability and a wildly uncertain future.
That’s because their on-field troubles are exacerbated tenfold by the approaching prospect of fines imposed by both the Premier League and the EFL in response to the club’s alleged breaches of profit and sustainability laws.
As a result, Leicester must compete on three fronts: on the field, off the field, and in the stands.
The Board vs. The League(s)
Think back to the summer of 2021. Leicester had just finished fifth in two consecutive seasons, and their ambitions were at an all-time high.
Up until this moment, the club’s finances had followed a tight business model: sell one star asset each summer and reinvest the proceeds correctly among specified sectors of the organization.
Some were like-for-like, with N’Golo Kanté subsequently replaced by Wilfred Ndidi, while others were more purposeful, such as using the sale of Harry Maguire to bankroll the club’s brand new, world-class training facility.
2021 saw a shift in philosophy, with Leicester moving from an underdog mentality to a desire to establish itself as a great team. And, in their opinion, that meant spending money like an exclusive club.
The player selling drawbridge was raised, bringing in players such as Patson Daka, Boubakary Soumaré, and Jannik Vestergaard for high prices and salaries. This was Leicester’s statement of intent: We’ve been rubbing shoulders with the big boys for a while now, and we’re here to stay.
That dream was quickly dashed when the team finished ninth and was relegated the following season. The club was relegated to the second tier after having the seventh-highest pay expenditure in the Premier League.
Whether you perceived the board’s expenditure as ambitious management or financial incompetence is debatable, but the club gambled, spent beyond its means to keep up with others whose revenue dwarfed theirs, and ultimately lost big.
The underlying financial crisis remained shrouded in mystery for supporters, who were mainly unaware of its severity. The sales of James Maddison and Harvey Barnes were followed by investing in the squad, leading many to believe the club was stable and following the proper procedures.
This faith proved to be unfounded. Leicester engaged in a behind-the-scenes tug of war with the EFL, which attempted to get the club to produce a business plan outlining how it expected to comply with financial fair play.
Leicester rejected, claiming that because it had been a Premier League team for all three seasons in question, the EFL’s demands fell outside the league’s jurisdiction.
Legal processes ensued, and Leicester eventually won their technicality case, but it set the wheels in action for both the EFL and the Premier League to focus on Leicester as a hot target.
The club has since been charged with allegedly breaching PSR, and been placed under a player registration embargo, effectively meaning it can’t sign new players or renew expiring contracts, of which there are plenty come this summer.
As a result, Leicester are locked in a lengthy legal battle with both the Premier League and the EFL, urgently attempting to prove a position that appears nonsensical.
Everyone outside of the club agrees that Leicester has overspent and has not received nearly enough incoming revenue to offset it. Commercial deals, product and ticket sales, and player trades are all well behind where they should be.
A points deduction appears unavoidable – however, Leicester appear to have dragged their heels long enough to ensure this will occur next season owing to time limits – regardless of the level the team finds itself in.
A spot in the Premier League would bring a juicy slice of television money, maybe allowing Leicester to maintain
A championship spot may result in a player fire sale, no replacements, and a significant points deduction to start the season.
It suggests that promotion is necessary.
The Team vs. Promotion
So what about promotion? The Foxes looked to be cruising back to the Premier League in second gear around Christmas time. Boasting a 17-point lead in the automatic promotion race and a playing style befitting of a top flight side,.
Manager Enzo Maresca has received praise since his arrival. Not only for the success he’s produced, but also for his ability to change the group from one that appeared completely rudderless under Brendan Rodgers to one that is revitalized and eager to go back on track.
His tactics have been questioned at times, as he prefers a methodical, possession-based approach that depends largely on patience and technique, but once the wins began to roll in, supporters jumped on board.
Everything has changed since the turn of the year. Off-field turmoil appears to have invaded the players’ heads, and Championship opponents are devising a strategy to neutralize this Leicester side.
The dearth of acquisitions in January didn’t help matters, and injuries to important players like Ricardo Pereira and Ndidi made Maresca’s job even more difficult, but that 17-point lead was gradually eroded week after week.
This amount of self-destructive behavior is not new in Leicester. The aforementioned consecutive fifth-place finishes occurred after spending the vast majority of the season comfortably inside the top four, whereas last year’s relegation was punctuated by the media and fans alike playing down the warning signs, claiming the club was ‘far too good to go down’.
Now, those same mental frailties are coming to the surface again, with the players badly flailing, all while promotion rivals Leeds and Ipswich show a level vel of grit and resilience seldom seen at the King Power Stadium in recent weeks.
Maresca is not above this criticism, either. Those same detractors from earlier in the season are back, lambasting his footballing philosophy, and are joined by more and more fans each passing week.
In an idyllic environment, with limited distractions and deep pockets to sign players with unrivalled technique, this style of play is hard to argue against. But belligerently overlooking players outside of the starting XI, persisting with a system that opponents are increasingly negating, and consistently pointing to one or two chances being created as proof of success is wearing thin for some.
All of this adds up to a bunch of players that appear to be lacking in confidence, as well as a manager who will not compromise his tactics in a campaign that will require a record points total to secure automatic promotion.
Right now, things aren’t looking good.
The Club vs. The Fans
The battle with both leagues and the one for promotion are, by their very nature, starting to accentuate a third – a rift with the club’s own fans.
Leicester have long been held up as a model of how all other smaller clubs should operate, balancing ambition with prudence, placing emphasis on the academy and recruitment, and channelling an underdog spirit that echoes throughout the stands.
How the club is perceived externally has always been important to the ownership, whether it’s as big as defying the odds to win Premier Leagues and FA Cups, or something as novel as gifting free donuts to everyone in attendance.
And the ownership has been overwhelmingly celebrated down the years by the fanbase, who to this day belt out ‘Vichai had a dream’ on matchdays in recognition of their late owner, who, as the song goes, allowed them to sing that they were indeed the champions of England.
However, as time passed and Vichai’s son, Khun Top, took over the club, there were murmurs of quiet unhappiness. For the most part, attacks have been directed at Top’s right-hand man, Director of Football Jon Rudkin.
Rudkin is perceived to be in charge of much of the operational mismanagement, whether it’s acquiring underwhelming signings on exorbitant salaries, failing to offload middle-of-the-road squad players, or sticking by Rodgers through thick and thin before relieving him of his duties beyond the point of return.
Top has received only one complaint thus far: his seeming blind loyalty to people around him. The club launched an internal inquiry into the causes that contributed to relegation last summer, but from the outside, it appears that little has changed in terms of how Leicester is operated.
The reason most of this is presumed and unknown is due to the club’s lack of transparency, as they have done very little to interact with fans in recent years.
The above, combined with a slew of contentious decisions about matchday atmosphere and ticket sales, as well as a serious code of conduct violation that resulted in the dismissal of Women’s manager Willie Kirk over an alleged relationship with a player, has slowly begun to erode trust between the club and its supporters.
Some fans have now begun pushing for changes at the top of the club, and unhappy voices on sites like The Fosse Way and podcasts like The Big Strong Leicester Boys are only growing louder.
Following Good Friday’s defeat to Bristol City, there was a mixed reaction in the away end at Ashton Gate, with some aiming their rage at the players and manager, while others continued to express their displeasure with the board.
Whatever way you look at it, Leicester City is at conflict with two different leagues, in an increasingly difficult race for promotion, and clinging to a fraying link with some of their own fans.
Winning promotion will not fix everything, but failing to do so may result in the club losing the battle on all three fronts.
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