Leicester’s decline and fall feels like a cruel parable as League One beckons | Paul MacInnes

“Is it the players, do they not care? Have you put your trust in the wrong people? This is the football club that we love and it’s down in League One, we just want to know what’s going on!”

Those were some of the thoughts aired by one board member of the Foxes Trust as Leicester fans sought to challenge their club’s owner, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, outside the King Power Stadium on Tuesday night. If they were unable to put a finger on quite why their club had been relegated to League One, then the man known as “Top” was none the wiser. “I cannot blame anyone,” he replied to his inquisitors. “I can blame myself if you want to. I tried everything, we all tried, but it was not enough.”

It may actually not be a mystery as to why, a decade after pulling off the football miracle of the century by winning the Premier League, Leicester are back in the third tier. There is an argument to be made that the root cause of the failure lies in that seismic success. But while Leicester are not finished and will likely be back sooner rather than later, their crisis is both unique and reflective of broader trends that many would say are harming English football.

Leicester’s immediate problems have been vivid from the turn of the year, since which point they have won two league matches, had six points deducted by the English Football League after breaching financial rules and changed managers to no discernible (at least, discernibly positive) effect. Fans are divided and there is much criticism of the players, who were told they were “not fit to wear the shirt” after defeat at Portsmouth last weekend.

Also in the firing line is Jon Rudkin, the sporting director. He is a man whose links with Leicester City go back 30 years and whose career forms a golden thread through their halcyon seasons. Rudkin’s first senior job at Leicester was as the academy manager from 2003, when he helped bring through future stars such as Andy King, Ben Chilwell and Harvey Barnes. He became director of football in 2014, the year Leicester returned to the Premier League after a decade away, and it was he who presided over not only a league title at odds of 5,000-1 but a first FA Cup title in the club’s history.

The year they won the Cup, in 2021, Leicester narrowly missed out for a second consecutive season on qualification for the Champions League under Brendan Rodgers. That summer, the club shifted approach in the transfer market. Instead of looking to offset some of their spending by making sales, as they had each season since returning to the top division (from 2016-21 the sales read: N’Golo Kanté, Danny Drinkwater, Riyadh Mahrez, Harry Maguire and, finally, Chilwell), Leicester would look to build. In 2021-22, less than £4m was recouped from player sales, while the acquisition of Patson Daka, Boubakary Soumaré and Jannik Vestergaard cost an estimated £55m.

This, in the language of the era, was a club “going for it”. Having punched a hole in the glass ceiling of the Premier League, Leicester were trying to climb through it. But the move turned out to be a failure in the short and long term. None of those summer signings were a success while Leicester’s pre-tax losses tripled from £31.2m to £92.5m, a club record.

Leicester reverted to their previous practices the following summer and sold Wesley Fofana for £70m, the key player in their defence. By the end of 2022-23, however, Leicester had not only been relegated but also posted another £90m loss. Despite an immediate return to the top flight, the losses accumulated over a three-season period were enough for the Premier League to charge Leicester with a breach of its profitability and sustainability rules. It set in train a process that led to the EFL docking the points that mean the team are seven adrift of Blackburn, 21st in the Championship, with two games remaining.

Doubtless there is enough blame to go around here – between the owners, executives and players – and any inquest into what has gone wrong is likely to be lengthy and heated. It should not be forgotten that there has been a tragedy in the mix: Top lost his father, and the club a revered leader, when Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha died in a helicopter crash in 2018.

But as the club look to reforge the connection with their support that once made the King Power such a magical place, it is tempting to look at Leicester’s fate and see it as a parable. They challenged the football gods and, for a moment, were so successful they thought they could join them. Ten years later, those gods have had their revenge.