Leicester City Up for Sale as King Power Ends Turbulent Era
Leicester City, once the miracle champions of England, are officially on the market.
According to BBC Sport, Thai owners King Power, led by chairman Aiyawatt “Top” Srivaddhanaprabha, have instructed US banking giant Citigroup to find a buyer for the club. The move marks a dramatic turn for a regime that bought Leicester for £35 million in 2010 and rode that stake all the way to a Premier League title and global acclaim.
Now the same family is trying to sell a very different Leicester City.
‘Project Lineup’ hits the market
Citigroup has begun circulating an eight-page sales brochure, bluntly titled “Project Lineup”, to potential investors. It is not a small package.
On offer: the men’s first team, the women’s side, the 32,000-seat King Power Stadium, and the Seagrave training complex – a facility that only opened in 2020 and carries a £121 million valuation on its own. In total, the club’s physical assets are priced at more than £200 million.
The brochure leans heavily on bricks, mortar and infrastructure. When it comes to the players, though, the numbers fade into the background. There is no clear valuation of the squads. Instead, Citigroup pitches Leicester as “a rare opportunity to acquire a club with an excellent track record of winning promotions to higher divisions.”
That line tells its own story. Leicester, the sales document suggests, remain a club that knows how to climb.
Big forecasts, bigger losses
The brochure projects a turnover of more than £97 million for the 2026 financial year. On the surface, it sounds healthy. Scratch deeper and the financial picture turns far more stark.
Between 2023 and 2025, the Foxes racked up losses of more than £180 million during a period of wild instability on and off the pitch. The 2025 accounts also revealed a heavy debt load, including £103.6 million in bank loans.
The pressure is not confined to the East Midlands. King Power’s duty-free business in Thailand, once the powerful engine behind Leicester’s rise, has been hit by global economic shifts. The synergy that flourished under the late Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha has been badly strained.
That combination – a struggling core business and a club burning cash – has pushed the owners towards an exit.
From fairy tale to fury
When the Srivaddhanaprabha family took over from Milan Mandaric in 2010, Leicester were Championship hopefuls with big ambitions and modest means. What followed changed English football.
They climbed, stunned the world with the 2015–16 Premier League title, lifted the FA Cup, and built a reputation as one of the smartest operators in the country. The King Power name became synonymous with one of the sport’s great modern fairy tales.
That glow has faded. Sharply.
Back-to-back relegations have dragged Leicester from the top flight to League One. Supporters who once filled the stadium with flags and gratitude have turned to anger and protest. The unrest built over months and boiled over after their latest drop, with fans gathering outside the stadium to voice their fury and demand change.
Now they have it. Just not in the way many imagined.
A club still selling its pedigree
Despite the gloom, “Project Lineup” makes sure to remind investors who Leicester City have been in the modern era. The brochure places them in an elite group: one of only five clubs to have won all three major English trophies – the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup – since 2000.
History still carries weight in boardrooms. So does talent.
A central plank of the pitch is Leicester’s youth system, long regarded as one of the most productive in the country. Citigroup hails a “strong talent pipeline backed by leading scouting infrastructure, active transfer management and highly developed academy system consistently producing top players.”
Recent business backs that up. Academy graduate Jeremy Monga moved to Manchester City for £10 million, a timely reminder that even in decline, Leicester can still produce and sell high-value talent.
For any buyer looking for a club that can fund itself through player trading, that line in the brochure will stand out.
League One reality bites
While “Project Lineup” circulates in financial circles, the football reality is far less glossy. Leicester are about to start life in League One for only the second time in their history.
Their campaign in the third tier begins with a trip to Notts County on Saturday. No glamour, no global spotlight. Just the hard grind of a division that does not care about Premier League titles or glossy training grounds.
The club that once toppled the elite now faces a fight simply to get back into the Championship. Somewhere above that struggle, bankers and investors will haggle over valuations and debt structures.
Between those two worlds – the balance sheet and the pitch – Leicester City’s next era is about to be written. The only question is who will own the story.
