How Leicester went from Premier League champions to League One in a decade

Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Leicester have won just two Championship matches in 2026

Football reporterPublished1 hour ago561 CommentsTen years ago, Leicester were days away from winning the Premier League. Next season, they will play in League One.

The Foxes have suffered a sharp decline since winning the FA Cup in 2021, and Tuesday's 2-2 draw with Hull City confirmed their relegation to the third tier.

From the extraordinary high of the 5,000-1 title triumph that shocked the world to the devastating loss of owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in a helicopter crash two years later, the Foxes have experienced every emotion in the past decade.

In 2016-17 they played Atletico Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals. A decade later, the Foxes will be in a league with a Bromley team who have spent 132 of their 134 years in existence playing non-league football.

After finishing eighth in the Premier League in 2022 and reaching the Conference League semi-finals, then manager Brendan Rodgers warned the club needed to alter their expectations.

Covid had a big impact on King Power - the duty-free retailer owned by Vichai - as airline travel halted.

The ripples were still being felt and, after an eight-game winless start to 2022-23, Rodgers said Leicester needed to focus on reaching 40 points.

It was a stark contrast to previous declarations from the former Liverpool boss, who spoke frequently about disrupting the established order in the Premier League.

Leicester came close to doing it, missing out on the Champions League on the final day of successive seasons in 2020 and 2021.

Under Rodgers they also won the FA Cup - beating Thomas Tuchel's Chelsea - but the decline quickly took hold amid a lack of quality investment.

So while Leicester tried to stay still, they ended up tumbling backwards.

They still boasted a team including internationals such as Jamie Vardy, James Maddison and Youri Tielemans but Rodgers was dismissed in April 2023 with the club in the bottom three. Former Aston Villa and Norwich boss Dean Smith came in but was unable to save them.

In the thee years since Rodgers left, Leicester have had seven managers, with sources questioning the decision-making as the Foxes have lurched from style to style with no identity.

They went from Smith to Enzo Maresca, who at least took them to the Championship title in 2024, to Steve Cooper - after a failed move for Graham Potter - to Ruud van Nistelrooy, who won just five of his 27 games.

Marti Cifuentes was appointed in July - Van Nistelrooy finally sacked once Leicester entered a new financial year - and was expected to pick up the pieces with the same damaged squad.

Cifuentes had them 14th - six points from the play-offs - when he was axed in January.

That decision looks worse the more time passes, and there were internal frustrations over the delay in replacing him, with former Foxes defender Gary Rowett eventually appointed 24 days later - having been sacked by relegation rivals Oxford in December.

Under Rowett, Leicester have fallen further, and the six-point deduction for breaching EFL financial rules in February left them out of the relegation zone only on goal difference.

Sources indicated there was a 'we will be fine' culture at the club - something that pervaded the club's relegation from the Premier League in 2023.

Insiders were stunned at the poor level of performance in Saturday's defeat at Portsmouth, after which midfielder Harry Winks became involved in an ugly row with fans as he boarded the team coach.

Winks, who has 10 England caps, was booed onto the pitch against Hull when he came on as a second-half substitute.

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From Premier League winners to League One

Leicester relegated to League One after Hull draw

The impact of the owner's deathThe impact of the death of Vichai - in a helicopter crash outside Leicester's stadium following a draw with West Ham - cannot be underestimated and is one the Foxes are still recovering from.

Vichai bought Leicester for £39m in 2010, cleared their debts and saw the club win promotion to the top flight four years later. Winning the Premier League against the odds in 2015-16 was one of the greatest sporting stories of all time.

"He was so influential," said defender Robert Huth, a key member of the Foxes' title-winning squad. "He had a 'get stuff done' attitude."

After Vichai's death, his son Aiyawatt - known as 'Top' - took charge of the club and his father's business.

"Top is younger than me," Huth added. "He lost his dad, he now has to run King Power. The spotlight is on him. It's very easy to criticise.

"He lost his father in public surroundings and it's going to have an effect. People overlook that. He had to take over the company when he was 33. You're a young man, you look at your dad for guidance, and it was taken away from him overnight."

Leicester have taken steps to halt the decline, but some sources have cited a blame culture and lack of responsibility both from the squad and within the club.

There have also been suggestions the owner is too reliant on Jon Rudkin - the newly promoted chief football officer who has been at the club for 30 years and was director of football when they won the Premier League.

"I worked with Jon and I always found him very fair, reasonable and honest," said Huth, who was Leicester's loans manager between 2022 and 2024.

"They love Leicester and want the club to do well but they need some help."

Image source, PA MediaImage caption, There were huge blocks of empty seats for Tuesday's game against Hull

"I don't think anybody ever really, truly, thought we would compete for the Premier League every season. We're not that deluded but there was a real optimism we might be able to start being up there for European spots quite often.

"It hasn't been a gradual decline. It's been absolutely hurtling in freefall - pretty much from Brendan Rodgers onwards.

"It's all gone horribly wrong really quickly. It's all very much out of control and no-one now knows how to fix it."

Football issues correspondentLeicester's relegation comes with serious financial question marks.

After being deducted six points for exceeding the maximum loss threshold through to the 2023-24 season by £20.8m, last month the club reported another huge loss (£71.1m) for 2024-25.

And that second season was as a Premier League club.

Leicester had been operating a wages-to-turnover ratio of more than 100% for the two seasons to 2023-24, meaning they were paying out more just on salaries than they generated.

Wages dropped to 82% for the Premier League relegation season - largely due to television income - but they still had several big earners.

Those players had clauses that reduced their wages upon relegation, but Leicester have still had several of the highest-paid players in the Championship this season.

Many of the big earners - such as Patson Daka, Ricardo Pereira and Winks - will be out of contract in the summer.

But Oliver Skipp is contracted through to 2029 and Jannik Vestergaard remains under contract after being given a three-year deal just before his 31st birthday in 2024.

Finding new clubs for those players will not be easy.

And then there's the issue with Leicester's loan from Australian investment bank Macquarie.

In September, they went to Macquarie to bring forward instalments due from the transfers of Tom Cannon, Kasey McAteer and James Justin. In January, they rolled over another loan to take in their last remaining parachute payment to June 2027.

'Top' has previously written off hundreds of millions of pounds in loans.

But now it seems Macquarie has been providing lots of the advanced funding, spending future monies due.

With television revenues much lower in the League One, there will come a point when there is not much left to take out loans against.

From next season, clubs in League One will be restricted to spending 60% of their extra football income - such as prize money, cup earnings or transfer fees received - on player-related expenditure.

With many players still at the club on - in League One terms - astronomical wages, it will be tough for Leicester to operate within these parameters.

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