The Thai owners of Leicester City FC are reportedly considering selling the club that has gone from the height of Premier League glory a decade ago to struggling in English football’s third tier.
King Power International, the duty-free retail group that has owned the club for more than 15 years, has tapped investment bankers at Citigroup to sound out buyers, the Financial Times quoted sources familiar with the matter as saying earlier this week.
Sky Sports reported that an unnamed Middle Eastern company has emerged as the first party showing serious interest.
Independent estimates value Leicester City’s assets, including its Seagrave training ground and King Power Stadium, at between £410 million and £530 million (18.4 billion to 23.8 billion baht).
Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, the billionaire founder of King Power, acquired Leicester City in 2010, when it was mid-table in the Championship, the second tier of English football.
The team reached the Premier League in 2014 and two years later they became English champions under Italian head coach Claudio Ranieri, in one of the most remarkable stories in the history of the sport.
Leicester went on to reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League the following season, but tragedy struck in 2018 when Vichai died in a helicopter crash outside the team’s stadium, with control passing to his son Aiyawatt. (Story continues below)
Chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha watches a Premier league match between Leicester City and Newcastle United at St James’ Park in Newcastle on May 22, 2023. (Photo: Reuters)
Leicester continued to enjoy some success, finishing fifth in the Premier League in 2020 and winning the FA Cup for the first time in 2021.
However, post-pandemic underperformance resulted in the club being relegated to the Championship in 2023. They bounced back for a single season before being relegated again in 2025.
Meanwhile, the club was facing scrutiny over its finances. In February this year it was hit with a six-point deduction for breaching English football’s rules that limit how much clubs can spend. It ended the season with relegation to League One, English football’s third tier.
Leicester were relegated to League One alongside Sheffield Wednesday — another club that fell on hard times under separate Thai ownership, before falling into administration and being bought in May by a US consortium.
Accounts released this year showed Leicester lost £71.1 million during the 2024-25 season despite being in the Premier League, which boosts revenues from broadcast rights and other sources, according to the FT.
The club’s owners last year erased £124 million of shareholder loans to the club, converting the debt to equity.