Leicester City put up for sale for more than £200m

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Leicester City put up for sale for more than £200m

General view of a Leicester City sign from the front of King Power StadiumImage source, Getty Images
ByAndrew AloiaBBC Sport, East Midlands and Nick MashiterFootball reporter
  • Published

Leicester City are looking to sell the club for more than £200m, with its Thai owners King Power ready to leave after 16 years.

The Foxes have had an eight-page sales booklet produced by a leading US investment bank to help offload the one-time Premier League title winners.

Citigroup lists the Foxes, its women’s team, and other major assets – including the 32,000-seat King Power Stadium and its Seagrave training facility which was opened in 2020 and is valued at £121m – as well as OH Leuven, Leicester’s Belgian sister club, as up for sale in a brochure titled ‘Project Lineup’.

The document, seen by BBC Sport, values the club’s physical assets at more than £200m, though no specific sum has been attributed to the sale of its struggling teams.

The brochure speaks of “a rare opportunity to acquire a club with an excellent track record of winning promotions to higher divisions”.

Leicester’s successes, including the 5,000-1 Premier League title win of 2016 and the FA Cup triumph five years later, are well promoted in the brochure, while their place in League One, after back-to-back relegations from the top flight and the Championship, fail to get a mention.

The club’s turnover, which Citigroup forecast to be more than £97m for the 2026 financial year are also part of the pitch, but the years of financial losses and the club’s debts – which, as outlined in its 2025 accounts, include £103.6m in bank loans – are omitted.

In the years that the club yo-yoed between the Premier League and Championship, with two relegations from the top flight in three years between 2023 and 2025, the club lost more than £180m.

King Power, run by the Srivaddhanaprabha family, bought Leicester for £35m from Milan Mandaric in 2010.

Khun Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha is currently chairman after his father Khun Vichai died in a helicopter crash outside the stadium in 2019.

Efforts to put the third-tier club up for sale were first reported in the Financial Times, external in July, but the product brochure now being circulated to prospective buyers is public confirmation that new investors are being sought.

The sale process comes just eight months on from Khun Top saying he is shouldering the blame for the club’s drastic recent demise.

There have been growing calls from disgruntled fans for the club to be sold, with the most vocal showing coming outside King Power Stadium after relegation from the Championship was confirmed last season.

Leicester’s struggles in recent years have come at a time when the King Power duty-free business in Thailand, which has been intrinsically linked to the club since the Srivaddhanaprabha family bought the Foxes, has also endured financial difficulties.

Despite the club’s issues, Leicester City is being positioned for sale as one of only five clubs to have won all three major English trophies – the Premier League, the FA Cup and the League Cup – since 2000.

The document also outlines the potential of the club’s academy, stating the Foxes have a “strong talent pipeline backed by leading scouting infrastructure, active transfer management and highly developed academy system consistently producing top players”.

Leicester sold academy graduate Jeremy Monga to Manchester City for £10m last month.

Leicester, relegated to League One for just the second time in their history last season, will start their latest campaign in the third tier under head coach Russell Martin at Notts County on Saturday.

Leicester declined to comment on the sale brochure when contacted by BBC Sport.

Who will want to buy the Foxes?

Analysis from Owynn Palmer-Atkin, BBC Radio Leicester

For some time, a growing portion of Leicester City fans have been calling for King Power to sell the football club.

Now, it appears they have got the beginning of their wish.

Despite incredible, fairytale-like success; a decline such as the one seen at King Power Stadium over the last half a decade cannot go unnoticed.

King Power changed the aspirations, the expectations and the definition of success at Leicester City. Now, they have to be held up against those same standards.

There are clear physical assets, but with the club now in its lowest position since 2009, a huge amount of time, effort and cash will be required to get it back to the Premier League.

The question now is, who wants to buy Leicester City?

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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: BBC