Leicester 'could face points deduction next season'

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

Fighting this, clearly the logic is “we’ve smashed the threshold, we might as well fight it because we’re going to be royally ****ed either way.”

 

Honestly wouldn’t surprise me if we spiralled down the leagues in the next 5 years. Rudkin will still be running the shop though.

[Foxes96]

3 hours ago, leicesterseddon said:

Anyone know which of the last three seasons (20/21, 21/22, 22/23) we’d be able to claim Covid deductions for?

 

And how are they calculated? 

Covid losses apply to 19/20 and 20/21, which is taken as an average for the purposes of PSR. 
 

So £105m permissible losses for (avg. of 19/20 & 20/21), 21/22 and 22/23.

 

The next 3 yr accounting period is 21/22, 22/23 and 23/24, with permissible losses of £83m.

[davieG]

A decent summing up.

 

https://talksport.com/football/1808306/leicester-championship-psr-charges-promotion/

 

Leicester City are battling a three-part war – and risk losing every single one
Charlie Carmichael

As we approach eight years since Leicester’s Premier League miracle, the club now finds itself in the midst of a crisis.

Good Friday’s defeat to Bristol City marked a fifth loss in eight, leaving The Foxes outside of the Championship’s automatic promotion places, having previously held a 17-point lead earlier in the season.

 

Leicester are on a slippery slope
For any club, squandering an immediate return to the Premier League would be a huge concern, but for Leicester, it could prove the difference between operational stability and a wildly uncertain future.

That’s because their on-pitch struggles are exaggerated tenfold by the impending threat of sanctions, levelled at the club by both the Premier League and EFL, following its alleged breaches of profit and sustainability regulations.

And so, Leicester find themselves battling on three fronts: on the pitch, off the pitch, and in the stands.

 

The Board vs. The League(s)
Cast your mind back to the summer of 2021. Leicester were coming off the back of two consecutive fifth-placed finishes and ambitions were at an all-time high.

Up to this point, the club’s finances had adhered to a strict business model: sell one star asset each summer, and reinvest the funds appropriately across specific areas of the club.

Some were like-for-like – with N’Golo Kanté eventually being replaced by Wilfred Ndidi – while others were more strategic, like leveraging the sale of Harry Maguire to fund the club’s brand new, first-in-class training facility.

2021 brought with it a change in mindset, where Leicester took the proverbial leap from an underdog mentality to wanting to establish themselves as an elite club. And in their eyes, that meant spending money like an elite club.

Leicester have an existential crisis on their hands
The player sale drawbridge was pulled up, and in came the likes of Patson Daka, Boubakary Soumaré, and Jannik Vestergaard for big fees and wages. This was Leicester’s statement of intent: we’ve rubbed shoulders with the big boys for some time, and now, we’re here to stay.

That dream was swiftly shattered by an eighth-placed finish and relegation the season after. The club crashed into the second division with the Premier League's seventh-highest wage bill.

Whether you saw the board’s outlay as ambitious management or financial negligence is subjective, but the club had gambled, spending beyond its means to keep pace with others whose revenue dwarfed their’s, and ultimately, lost out big time.

The true financial mire remained shrouded in a layer of mystery for supporters, who were largely kept in the dark as to the extent of its precariousness. The sales of James Maddison and Harvey Barnes were followed by reinvestment into the squad, which to most suggested the club was stable and complying with the relevant processes.

This faith proved to be unfounded. Leicester entered into a behind-the-scenes tug of war with the EFL, who tried to get the club to submit a business plan, which would demonstrate how it planned to align itself with financial fair play.

Leicester refused, exploiting something of a loophole in the rules by arguing that, because it was a Premier League club for all three seasons in question, the EFL’s demands were outside of the league’s jurisdiction. 

Legal proceedings followed and Leicester duly won their argument over the technicality, but it set the wheels in motion for both the EFL and Premier League to hone in on Leicester as a red-hot target.

The club has since been charged with allegedly breaching PSR, and been placed under a player registration embargo, effectively meaning it can’t sign new players or renew expiring contracts, of which there are plenty come this summer.

Maresca's men could be in real trouble if they don't get promoted

And so, Leicester find themselves embroiled in a gruelling legal battle against both the Premier League and the EFL, desperately trying to argue a case that ostensibly looks illogical.

It’s broadly accepted by everyone outside of the club that Leicester have overspent, and haven’t had anywhere near the required incoming revenue to offset it. Commercial deals, merchandise and ticket sales, and player trading are all well behind where they’d need to be.

A points deduction feels inevitable – although Leicester seem to have dragged their heels enough to ensure this will come next season due to time constraints – regardless of what division the club finds itself in.

A place in the Premier League would mean a tasty slice of television money, perhaps allowing Leicester to retain its star assets, and hopefully not falling foul of PSR by such an alarming margin. 

A place in the Championship… well, that could mean a firesale of players for cut-price fees, an embargo to prevent any replacements, and a hefty points deduction to kick the season off. 

It paints the picture of promotion being a necessity.

 

The Team vs. Promotion
So what about promotion? The Foxes looked to be cruising back to the Premier League in second gear around Christmas time. Boasting a 17-point lead in the automatic promotion race and a playing style befitting of a top flight side.
Manager Enzo Maresca has been lauded since his arrival. Not only for the results he’s brought, but also the way he’s been able to transform the squad from looking utterly rudderless under Brendan Rodgers to reinvigorated and hungry to bounce straight back.

His tactics have been called into question at times – opting for a methodical, possession-based style that relies heavily on patience and technique – but by and large, once the wins started flooding in, fans hopped aboard the bandwagon.

All that has changed since the turn of the year. Off-pitch drama appears to have infiltrated the players’ mindset, and Championship opponents are beginning to develop a blueprint of how to nullify this Leicester side.

The lack of signings in January certainly didn’t help matters, and injuries to key players such as Ricardo Pereira and Ndidi have made Maresca’s task more problematic, but week by week, that 17-point lead was slowly chipped away.

This level of self-implosion is nothing new to Leicester. The aforementioned consecutive fifth-placed finishes both came about after spending the vast majority of the season comfortably inside the top four, while last year’s journey to relegation was punctuated by the media and fans alike playing down the warning signs, stating the club was ‘far too good to go down’.

Now those same mental frailties are coming to the surface again, with the players hopelessly floundering, all while watching promotion rivals Leeds and Ipswich show a level of grit and resilience seldom seen at the King Power Stadium in recent weeks.

Maresca is not above this criticism, either. Those same detractors from earlier in the season are back, lambasting his footballing philosophy, and are joined by more and more fans each passing week.

In an idyllic environment, with limited distractions and deep pockets to sign players with unrivalled technique, this style of play is hard to argue against. But belligerently overlooking players outside of the starting XI, persisting with a system that opponents are increasingly negating, and consistently pointing to one or two chances being created as proof of success is wearing thin for some.

Leicester looked all-but certain to win promotion a matter of weeks ago
All of this adds up to a group of players who look bereft of belief and a manager who won’t compromise his tactics, competing in a campaign that will require a record points tally to achieve automatic promotion.

As of right now, it’s not looking great. 

 

The Club vs. The Fans
The battle with both leagues and the one for promotion are, by their very nature, starting to accentuate a third – a rift with the club’s own fans.

Leicester have long been held up as a model of how all other smaller clubs should operate, balancing ambition with prudence, placing emphasis on the academy and recruitment, and channelling an underdog spirit that echoes throughout the stands.

How the club is perceived externally has always been important to the ownership, whether it’s as big as defying the odds to win Premier Leagues and FA Cups, or something as novel as gifting free donuts to everyone in attendance.

And the ownership has been overwhelmingly celebrated down the years by the fanbase, who to this day belt out ‘Vichai had a dream’ on matchdays in recognition of their late owner who, as the song goes, allowed them to sing that they were indeed the champions of England.

As time has passed, though, and the stewardship of the club has fallen to Vichai’s son, Khun Top, there have been murmurs of quiet discontent. For the most part, these haven’t been aimed towards Top, but rather his right-hand man, Director of Football Jon Rudkin.

It is Rudkin who is perceived to be the person overseeing so much of the operational mismanagement, whether that’s acquiring underwhelming signings on astronomical wages, failing to offload middle-of-the road squad players, or sticking by Rodgers through thick and thin, only to then relieve him of his duties beyond the point of return.

The only criticism levelled at Top thus far has been his apparent blind loyalty to those around him. The club conducted an internal investigation into the issues that led to relegation last summer, which from the outside looking in, appears to have changed very little in regards to how Leicester is being run.

The reason most of this is assumed and not known, is down to a distinct lack of transparency from the club, who have done very little to communicate with fans in recent years.

The above, combined with a plethora of contentious decisions surrounding the matchday atmosphere and ticket sales – in addition to a serious code of conduct breach which led to the dismissal of Women’s manager, Willie Kirk, over an alleged relationship with a player – has slowly started to erode the trust between the club and its supporters.

Some fans have now begun calling for changes to be made at the top of the club, and disgruntled voices across sites like The Fosse Way and podcasts like The Big Strong Leicester Boys are only growing louder.

The aftermath of Good Friday’s defeat to Bristol City was met by a mixed reception in the away end at Ashton Gate, with some directing their anger towards the players and manager, while others continued to make their feelings of discontent towards the board be known.

Whichever way Leicester City looks at it, they find themselves at odds with two different leagues, in an ever-harder race for promotion, and clinging onto a breaking bond with sections of their own fanbase.

Winning promotion won’t solve everything, but failure to do so could well see the club lose its battle on all three fronts. 

[ClaphamFox]

18 minutes ago, davieG said:

A decent summing up.

 

https://talksport.com/football/1808306/leicester-championship-psr-charges-promotion/

 

Leicester City are battling a three-part war – and risk losing every single one
Charlie Carmichael

As we approach eight years since Leicester’s Premier League miracle, the club now finds itself in the midst of a crisis.

Good Friday’s defeat to Bristol City marked a fifth loss in eight, leaving The Foxes outside of the Championship’s automatic promotion places, having previously held a 17-point lead earlier in the season.

 

Leicester are on a slippery slope
For any club, squandering an immediate return to the Premier League would be a huge concern, but for Leicester, it could prove the difference between operational stability and a wildly uncertain future.

That’s because their on-pitch struggles are exaggerated tenfold by the impending threat of sanctions, levelled at the club by both the Premier League and EFL, following its alleged breaches of profit and sustainability regulations.

And so, Leicester find themselves battling on three fronts: on the pitch, off the pitch, and in the stands.

 

The Board vs. The League(s)
Cast your mind back to the summer of 2021. Leicester were coming off the back of two consecutive fifth-placed finishes and ambitions were at an all-time high.

Up to this point, the club’s finances had adhered to a strict business model: sell one star asset each summer, and reinvest the funds appropriately across specific areas of the club.

Some were like-for-like – with N’Golo Kanté eventually being replaced by Wilfred Ndidi – while others were more strategic, like leveraging the sale of Harry Maguire to fund the club’s brand new, first-in-class training facility.

2021 brought with it a change in mindset, where Leicester took the proverbial leap from an underdog mentality to wanting to establish themselves as an elite club. And in their eyes, that meant spending money like an elite club.

Leicester have an existential crisis on their hands
The player sale drawbridge was pulled up, and in came the likes of Patson Daka, Boubakary Soumaré, and Jannik Vestergaard for big fees and wages. This was Leicester’s statement of intent: we’ve rubbed shoulders with the big boys for some time, and now, we’re here to stay.

That dream was swiftly shattered by an eighth-placed finish and relegation the season after. The club crashed into the second division with the Premier League's seventh-highest wage bill.

Whether you saw the board’s outlay as ambitious management or financial negligence is subjective, but the club had gambled, spending beyond its means to keep pace with others whose revenue dwarfed their’s, and ultimately, lost out big time.

The true financial mire remained shrouded in a layer of mystery for supporters, who were largely kept in the dark as to the extent of its precariousness. The sales of James Maddison and Harvey Barnes were followed by reinvestment into the squad, which to most suggested the club was stable and complying with the relevant processes.

This faith proved to be unfounded. Leicester entered into a behind-the-scenes tug of war with the EFL, who tried to get the club to submit a business plan, which would demonstrate how it planned to align itself with financial fair play.

Leicester refused, exploiting something of a loophole in the rules by arguing that, because it was a Premier League club for all three seasons in question, the EFL’s demands were outside of the league’s jurisdiction. 

Legal proceedings followed and Leicester duly won their argument over the technicality, but it set the wheels in motion for both the EFL and Premier League to hone in on Leicester as a red-hot target.

The club has since been charged with allegedly breaching PSR, and been placed under a player registration embargo, effectively meaning it can’t sign new players or renew expiring contracts, of which there are plenty come this summer.

Maresca's men could be in real trouble if they don't get promoted

And so, Leicester find themselves embroiled in a gruelling legal battle against both the Premier League and the EFL, desperately trying to argue a case that ostensibly looks illogical.

It’s broadly accepted by everyone outside of the club that Leicester have overspent, and haven’t had anywhere near the required incoming revenue to offset it. Commercial deals, merchandise and ticket sales, and player trading are all well behind where they’d need to be.

A points deduction feels inevitable – although Leicester seem to have dragged their heels enough to ensure this will come next season due to time constraints – regardless of what division the club finds itself in.

A place in the Premier League would mean a tasty slice of television money, perhaps allowing Leicester to retain its star assets, and hopefully not falling foul of PSR by such an alarming margin. 

A place in the Championship… well, that could mean a firesale of players for cut-price fees, an embargo to prevent any replacements, and a hefty points deduction to kick the season off. 

It paints the picture of promotion being a necessity.

 

The Team vs. Promotion
So what about promotion? The Foxes looked to be cruising back to the Premier League in second gear around Christmas time. Boasting a 17-point lead in the automatic promotion race and a playing style befitting of a top flight side.
Manager Enzo Maresca has been lauded since his arrival. Not only for the results he’s brought, but also the way he’s been able to transform the squad from looking utterly rudderless under Brendan Rodgers to reinvigorated and hungry to bounce straight back.

His tactics have been called into question at times – opting for a methodical, possession-based style that relies heavily on patience and technique – but by and large, once the wins started flooding in, fans hopped aboard the bandwagon.

All that has changed since the turn of the year. Off-pitch drama appears to have infiltrated the players’ mindset, and Championship opponents are beginning to develop a blueprint of how to nullify this Leicester side.

The lack of signings in January certainly didn’t help matters, and injuries to key players such as Ricardo Pereira and Ndidi have made Maresca’s task more problematic, but week by week, that 17-point lead was slowly chipped away.

This level of self-implosion is nothing new to Leicester. The aforementioned consecutive fifth-placed finishes both came about after spending the vast majority of the season comfortably inside the top four, while last year’s journey to relegation was punctuated by the media and fans alike playing down the warning signs, stating the club was ‘far too good to go down’.

Now those same mental frailties are coming to the surface again, with the players hopelessly floundering, all while watching promotion rivals Leeds and Ipswich show a level of grit and resilience seldom seen at the King Power Stadium in recent weeks.

Maresca is not above this criticism, either. Those same detractors from earlier in the season are back, lambasting his footballing philosophy, and are joined by more and more fans each passing week.

In an idyllic environment, with limited distractions and deep pockets to sign players with unrivalled technique, this style of play is hard to argue against. But belligerently overlooking players outside of the starting XI, persisting with a system that opponents are increasingly negating, and consistently pointing to one or two chances being created as proof of success is wearing thin for some.

Leicester looked all-but certain to win promotion a matter of weeks ago
All of this adds up to a group of players who look bereft of belief and a manager who won’t compromise his tactics, competing in a campaign that will require a record points tally to achieve automatic promotion.

As of right now, it’s not looking great. 

 

The Club vs. The Fans
The battle with both leagues and the one for promotion are, by their very nature, starting to accentuate a third – a rift with the club’s own fans.

Leicester have long been held up as a model of how all other smaller clubs should operate, balancing ambition with prudence, placing emphasis on the academy and recruitment, and channelling an underdog spirit that echoes throughout the stands.

How the club is perceived externally has always been important to the ownership, whether it’s as big as defying the odds to win Premier Leagues and FA Cups, or something as novel as gifting free donuts to everyone in attendance.

And the ownership has been overwhelmingly celebrated down the years by the fanbase, who to this day belt out ‘Vichai had a dream’ on matchdays in recognition of their late owner who, as the song goes, allowed them to sing that they were indeed the champions of England.

As time has passed, though, and the stewardship of the club has fallen to Vichai’s son, Khun Top, there have been murmurs of quiet discontent. For the most part, these haven’t been aimed towards Top, but rather his right-hand man, Director of Football Jon Rudkin.

It is Rudkin who is perceived to be the person overseeing so much of the operational mismanagement, whether that’s acquiring underwhelming signings on astronomical wages, failing to offload middle-of-the road squad players, or sticking by Rodgers through thick and thin, only to then relieve him of his duties beyond the point of return.

The only criticism levelled at Top thus far has been his apparent blind loyalty to those around him. The club conducted an internal investigation into the issues that led to relegation last summer, which from the outside looking in, appears to have changed very little in regards to how Leicester is being run.

The reason most of this is assumed and not known, is down to a distinct lack of transparency from the club, who have done very little to communicate with fans in recent years.

The above, combined with a plethora of contentious decisions surrounding the matchday atmosphere and ticket sales – in addition to a serious code of conduct breach which led to the dismissal of Women’s manager, Willie Kirk, over an alleged relationship with a player – has slowly started to erode the trust between the club and its supporters.

Some fans have now begun calling for changes to be made at the top of the club, and disgruntled voices across sites like The Fosse Way and podcasts like The Big Strong Leicester Boys are only growing louder.

The aftermath of Good Friday’s defeat to Bristol City was met by a mixed reception in the away end at Ashton Gate, with some directing their anger towards the players and manager, while others continued to make their feelings of discontent towards the board be known.

Whichever way Leicester City looks at it, they find themselves at odds with two different leagues, in an ever-harder race for promotion, and clinging onto a breaking bond with sections of their own fanbase.

Winning promotion won’t solve everything, but failure to do so could well see the club lose its battle on all three fronts. 

You can tell it’s written by a Leicester fan - the sense the impending doom is palpable. 

[st albans fox]

16 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

You can tell it’s written by a Leicester fan - the sense the impending doom is palpable. 

It’s obvious - he mentions rudkin

no one else in football knows who he is 

[Cropwellfox]

35 minutes ago, davieG said:

A decent summing up.

 

https://talksport.com/football/1808306/leicester-championship-psr-charges-promotion/

 

Leicester City are battling a three-part war – and risk losing every single one
Charlie Carmichael

As we approach eight years since Leicester’s Premier League miracle, the club now finds itself in the midst of a crisis.

Good Friday’s defeat to Bristol City marked a fifth loss in eight, leaving The Foxes outside of the Championship’s automatic promotion places, having previously held a 17-point lead earlier in the season.

 

Leicester are on a slippery slope
For any club, squandering an immediate return to the Premier League would be a huge concern, but for Leicester, it could prove the difference between operational stability and a wildly uncertain future.

That’s because their on-pitch struggles are exaggerated tenfold by the impending threat of sanctions, levelled at the club by both the Premier League and EFL, following its alleged breaches of profit and sustainability regulations.

And so, Leicester find themselves battling on three fronts: on the pitch, off the pitch, and in the stands.

 

The Board vs. The League(s)
Cast your mind back to the summer of 2021. Leicester were coming off the back of two consecutive fifth-placed finishes and ambitions were at an all-time high.

Up to this point, the club’s finances had adhered to a strict business model: sell one star asset each summer, and reinvest the funds appropriately across specific areas of the club.

Some were like-for-like – with N’Golo Kanté eventually being replaced by Wilfred Ndidi – while others were more strategic, like leveraging the sale of Harry Maguire to fund the club’s brand new, first-in-class training facility.

2021 brought with it a change in mindset, where Leicester took the proverbial leap from an underdog mentality to wanting to establish themselves as an elite club. And in their eyes, that meant spending money like an elite club.

Leicester have an existential crisis on their hands
The player sale drawbridge was pulled up, and in came the likes of Patson Daka, Boubakary Soumaré, and Jannik Vestergaard for big fees and wages. This was Leicester’s statement of intent: we’ve rubbed shoulders with the big boys for some time, and now, we’re here to stay.

That dream was swiftly shattered by an eighth-placed finish and relegation the season after. The club crashed into the second division with the Premier League's seventh-highest wage bill.

Whether you saw the board’s outlay as ambitious management or financial negligence is subjective, but the club had gambled, spending beyond its means to keep pace with others whose revenue dwarfed their’s, and ultimately, lost out big time.

The true financial mire remained shrouded in a layer of mystery for supporters, who were largely kept in the dark as to the extent of its precariousness. The sales of James Maddison and Harvey Barnes were followed by reinvestment into the squad, which to most suggested the club was stable and complying with the relevant processes.

This faith proved to be unfounded. Leicester entered into a behind-the-scenes tug of war with the EFL, who tried to get the club to submit a business plan, which would demonstrate how it planned to align itself with financial fair play.

Leicester refused, exploiting something of a loophole in the rules by arguing that, because it was a Premier League club for all three seasons in question, the EFL’s demands were outside of the league’s jurisdiction. 

Legal proceedings followed and Leicester duly won their argument over the technicality, but it set the wheels in motion for both the EFL and Premier League to hone in on Leicester as a red-hot target.

The club has since been charged with allegedly breaching PSR, and been placed under a player registration embargo, effectively meaning it can’t sign new players or renew expiring contracts, of which there are plenty come this summer.

Maresca's men could be in real trouble if they don't get promoted

And so, Leicester find themselves embroiled in a gruelling legal battle against both the Premier League and the EFL, desperately trying to argue a case that ostensibly looks illogical.

It’s broadly accepted by everyone outside of the club that Leicester have overspent, and haven’t had anywhere near the required incoming revenue to offset it. Commercial deals, merchandise and ticket sales, and player trading are all well behind where they’d need to be.

A points deduction feels inevitable – although Leicester seem to have dragged their heels enough to ensure this will come next season due to time constraints – regardless of what division the club finds itself in.

A place in the Premier League would mean a tasty slice of television money, perhaps allowing Leicester to retain its star assets, and hopefully not falling foul of PSR by such an alarming margin. 

A place in the Championship… well, that could mean a firesale of players for cut-price fees, an embargo to prevent any replacements, and a hefty points deduction to kick the season off. 

It paints the picture of promotion being a necessity.

 

The Team vs. Promotion
So what about promotion? The Foxes looked to be cruising back to the Premier League in second gear around Christmas time. Boasting a 17-point lead in the automatic promotion race and a playing style befitting of a top flight side.
Manager Enzo Maresca has been lauded since his arrival. Not only for the results he’s brought, but also the way he’s been able to transform the squad from looking utterly rudderless under Brendan Rodgers to reinvigorated and hungry to bounce straight back.

His tactics have been called into question at times – opting for a methodical, possession-based style that relies heavily on patience and technique – but by and large, once the wins started flooding in, fans hopped aboard the bandwagon.

All that has changed since the turn of the year. Off-pitch drama appears to have infiltrated the players’ mindset, and Championship opponents are beginning to develop a blueprint of how to nullify this Leicester side.

The lack of signings in January certainly didn’t help matters, and injuries to key players such as Ricardo Pereira and Ndidi have made Maresca’s task more problematic, but week by week, that 17-point lead was slowly chipped away.

This level of self-implosion is nothing new to Leicester. The aforementioned consecutive fifth-placed finishes both came about after spending the vast majority of the season comfortably inside the top four, while last year’s journey to relegation was punctuated by the media and fans alike playing down the warning signs, stating the club was ‘far too good to go down’.

Now those same mental frailties are coming to the surface again, with the players hopelessly floundering, all while watching promotion rivals Leeds and Ipswich show a level of grit and resilience seldom seen at the King Power Stadium in recent weeks.

Maresca is not above this criticism, either. Those same detractors from earlier in the season are back, lambasting his footballing philosophy, and are joined by more and more fans each passing week.

In an idyllic environment, with limited distractions and deep pockets to sign players with unrivalled technique, this style of play is hard to argue against. But belligerently overlooking players outside of the starting XI, persisting with a system that opponents are increasingly negating, and consistently pointing to one or two chances being created as proof of success is wearing thin for some.

Leicester looked all-but certain to win promotion a matter of weeks ago
All of this adds up to a group of players who look bereft of belief and a manager who won’t compromise his tactics, competing in a campaign that will require a record points tally to achieve automatic promotion.

As of right now, it’s not looking great. 

 

The Club vs. The Fans
The battle with both leagues and the one for promotion are, by their very nature, starting to accentuate a third – a rift with the club’s own fans.

Leicester have long been held up as a model of how all other smaller clubs should operate, balancing ambition with prudence, placing emphasis on the academy and recruitment, and channelling an underdog spirit that echoes throughout the stands.

How the club is perceived externally has always been important to the ownership, whether it’s as big as defying the odds to win Premier Leagues and FA Cups, or something as novel as gifting free donuts to everyone in attendance.

And the ownership has been overwhelmingly celebrated down the years by the fanbase, who to this day belt out ‘Vichai had a dream’ on matchdays in recognition of their late owner who, as the song goes, allowed them to sing that they were indeed the champions of England.

As time has passed, though, and the stewardship of the club has fallen to Vichai’s son, Khun Top, there have been murmurs of quiet discontent. For the most part, these haven’t been aimed towards Top, but rather his right-hand man, Director of Football Jon Rudkin.

It is Rudkin who is perceived to be the person overseeing so much of the operational mismanagement, whether that’s acquiring underwhelming signings on astronomical wages, failing to offload middle-of-the road squad players, or sticking by Rodgers through thick and thin, only to then relieve him of his duties beyond the point of return.

The only criticism levelled at Top thus far has been his apparent blind loyalty to those around him. The club conducted an internal investigation into the issues that led to relegation last summer, which from the outside looking in, appears to have changed very little in regards to how Leicester is being run.

The reason most of this is assumed and not known, is down to a distinct lack of transparency from the club, who have done very little to communicate with fans in recent years.

The above, combined with a plethora of contentious decisions surrounding the matchday atmosphere and ticket sales – in addition to a serious code of conduct breach which led to the dismissal of Women’s manager, Willie Kirk, over an alleged relationship with a player – has slowly started to erode the trust between the club and its supporters.

Some fans have now begun calling for changes to be made at the top of the club, and disgruntled voices across sites like The Fosse Way and podcasts like The Big Strong Leicester Boys are only growing louder.

The aftermath of Good Friday’s defeat to Bristol City was met by a mixed reception in the away end at Ashton Gate, with some directing their anger towards the players and manager, while others continued to make their feelings of discontent towards the board be known.

Whichever way Leicester City looks at it, they find themselves at odds with two different leagues, in an ever-harder race for promotion, and clinging onto a breaking bond with sections of their own fanbase.

Winning promotion won’t solve everything, but failure to do so could well see the club lose its battle on all three fronts. 

Really strong summary of where we are at. Wouldn’t be overly hyperbolic to say the next couple of months are existentially important for the club - in so far as the next few years and how far we may fall down the pyramid are concerned at least. In that situation one thing you need is to be able to trust the leaders, pull together and dig in. Sadly it doesn’t look like the players are doing so at all, and the majority of the fans are more and more passive bystanders as the ship starts to list. 

[trugerkem]

7 hours ago, davieG said:

A decent summing up.

 

https://talksport.com/football/1808306/leicester-championship-psr-charges-promotion/

 

Leicester City are battling a three-part war – and risk losing every single one
Charlie Carmichael

As we approach eight years since Leicester’s Premier League miracle, the club now finds itself in the midst of a crisis.

Good Friday’s defeat to Bristol City marked a fifth loss in eight, leaving The Foxes outside of the Championship’s automatic promotion places, having previously held a 17-point lead earlier in the season.

 

Leicester are on a slippery slope
For any club, squandering an immediate return to the Premier League would be a huge concern, but for Leicester, it could prove the difference between operational stability and a wildly uncertain future.

That’s because their on-pitch struggles are exaggerated tenfold by the impending threat of sanctions, levelled at the club by both the Premier League and EFL, following its alleged breaches of profit and sustainability regulations.

And so, Leicester find themselves battling on three fronts: on the pitch, off the pitch, and in the stands.

 

The Board vs. The League(s)
Cast your mind back to the summer of 2021. Leicester were coming off the back of two consecutive fifth-placed finishes and ambitions were at an all-time high.

Up to this point, the club’s finances had adhered to a strict business model: sell one star asset each summer, and reinvest the funds appropriately across specific areas of the club.

Some were like-for-like – with N’Golo Kanté eventually being replaced by Wilfred Ndidi – while others were more strategic, like leveraging the sale of Harry Maguire to fund the club’s brand new, first-in-class training facility.

2021 brought with it a change in mindset, where Leicester took the proverbial leap from an underdog mentality to wanting to establish themselves as an elite club. And in their eyes, that meant spending money like an elite club.

Leicester have an existential crisis on their hands
The player sale drawbridge was pulled up, and in came the likes of Patson Daka, Boubakary Soumaré, and Jannik Vestergaard for big fees and wages. This was Leicester’s statement of intent: we’ve rubbed shoulders with the big boys for some time, and now, we’re here to stay.

That dream was swiftly shattered by an eighth-placed finish and relegation the season after. The club crashed into the second division with the Premier League's seventh-highest wage bill.

Whether you saw the board’s outlay as ambitious management or financial negligence is subjective, but the club had gambled, spending beyond its means to keep pace with others whose revenue dwarfed their’s, and ultimately, lost out big time.

The true financial mire remained shrouded in a layer of mystery for supporters, who were largely kept in the dark as to the extent of its precariousness. The sales of James Maddison and Harvey Barnes were followed by reinvestment into the squad, which to most suggested the club was stable and complying with the relevant processes.

This faith proved to be unfounded. Leicester entered into a behind-the-scenes tug of war with the EFL, who tried to get the club to submit a business plan, which would demonstrate how it planned to align itself with financial fair play.

Leicester refused, exploiting something of a loophole in the rules by arguing that, because it was a Premier League club for all three seasons in question, the EFL’s demands were outside of the league’s jurisdiction. 

Legal proceedings followed and Leicester duly won their argument over the technicality, but it set the wheels in motion for both the EFL and Premier League to hone in on Leicester as a red-hot target.

The club has since been charged with allegedly breaching PSR, and been placed under a player registration embargo, effectively meaning it can’t sign new players or renew expiring contracts, of which there are plenty come this summer.

Maresca's men could be in real trouble if they don't get promoted

And so, Leicester find themselves embroiled in a gruelling legal battle against both the Premier League and the EFL, desperately trying to argue a case that ostensibly looks illogical.

It’s broadly accepted by everyone outside of the club that Leicester have overspent, and haven’t had anywhere near the required incoming revenue to offset it. Commercial deals, merchandise and ticket sales, and player trading are all well behind where they’d need to be.

A points deduction feels inevitable – although Leicester seem to have dragged their heels enough to ensure this will come next season due to time constraints – regardless of what division the club finds itself in.

A place in the Premier League would mean a tasty slice of television money, perhaps allowing Leicester to retain its star assets, and hopefully not falling foul of PSR by such an alarming margin. 

A place in the Championship… well, that could mean a firesale of players for cut-price fees, an embargo to prevent any replacements, and a hefty points deduction to kick the season off. 

It paints the picture of promotion being a necessity.

 

The Team vs. Promotion
So what about promotion? The Foxes looked to be cruising back to the Premier League in second gear around Christmas time. Boasting a 17-point lead in the automatic promotion race and a playing style befitting of a top flight side.
Manager Enzo Maresca has been lauded since his arrival. Not only for the results he’s brought, but also the way he’s been able to transform the squad from looking utterly rudderless under Brendan Rodgers to reinvigorated and hungry to bounce straight back.

His tactics have been called into question at times – opting for a methodical, possession-based style that relies heavily on patience and technique – but by and large, once the wins started flooding in, fans hopped aboard the bandwagon.

All that has changed since the turn of the year. Off-pitch drama appears to have infiltrated the players’ mindset, and Championship opponents are beginning to develop a blueprint of how to nullify this Leicester side.

The lack of signings in January certainly didn’t help matters, and injuries to key players such as Ricardo Pereira and Ndidi have made Maresca’s task more problematic, but week by week, that 17-point lead was slowly chipped away.

This level of self-implosion is nothing new to Leicester. The aforementioned consecutive fifth-placed finishes both came about after spending the vast majority of the season comfortably inside the top four, while last year’s journey to relegation was punctuated by the media and fans alike playing down the warning signs, stating the club was ‘far too good to go down’.

Now those same mental frailties are coming to the surface again, with the players hopelessly floundering, all while watching promotion rivals Leeds and Ipswich show a level of grit and resilience seldom seen at the King Power Stadium in recent weeks.

Maresca is not above this criticism, either. Those same detractors from earlier in the season are back, lambasting his footballing philosophy, and are joined by more and more fans each passing week.

In an idyllic environment, with limited distractions and deep pockets to sign players with unrivalled technique, this style of play is hard to argue against. But belligerently overlooking players outside of the starting XI, persisting with a system that opponents are increasingly negating, and consistently pointing to one or two chances being created as proof of success is wearing thin for some.

Leicester looked all-but certain to win promotion a matter of weeks ago
All of this adds up to a group of players who look bereft of belief and a manager who won’t compromise his tactics, competing in a campaign that will require a record points tally to achieve automatic promotion.

As of right now, it’s not looking great. 

 

The Club vs. The Fans
The battle with both leagues and the one for promotion are, by their very nature, starting to accentuate a third – a rift with the club’s own fans.

Leicester have long been held up as a model of how all other smaller clubs should operate, balancing ambition with prudence, placing emphasis on the academy and recruitment, and channelling an underdog spirit that echoes throughout the stands.

How the club is perceived externally has always been important to the ownership, whether it’s as big as defying the odds to win Premier Leagues and FA Cups, or something as novel as gifting free donuts to everyone in attendance.

And the ownership has been overwhelmingly celebrated down the years by the fanbase, who to this day belt out ‘Vichai had a dream’ on matchdays in recognition of their late owner who, as the song goes, allowed them to sing that they were indeed the champions of England.

As time has passed, though, and the stewardship of the club has fallen to Vichai’s son, Khun Top, there have been murmurs of quiet discontent. For the most part, these haven’t been aimed towards Top, but rather his right-hand man, Director of Football Jon Rudkin.

It is Rudkin who is perceived to be the person overseeing so much of the operational mismanagement, whether that’s acquiring underwhelming signings on astronomical wages, failing to offload middle-of-the road squad players, or sticking by Rodgers through thick and thin, only to then relieve him of his duties beyond the point of return.

The only criticism levelled at Top thus far has been his apparent blind loyalty to those around him. The club conducted an internal investigation into the issues that led to relegation last summer, which from the outside looking in, appears to have changed very little in regards to how Leicester is being run.

The reason most of this is assumed and not known, is down to a distinct lack of transparency from the club, who have done very little to communicate with fans in recent years.

The above, combined with a plethora of contentious decisions surrounding the matchday atmosphere and ticket sales – in addition to a serious code of conduct breach which led to the dismissal of Women’s manager, Willie Kirk, over an alleged relationship with a player – has slowly started to erode the trust between the club and its supporters.

Some fans have now begun calling for changes to be made at the top of the club, and disgruntled voices across sites like The Fosse Way and podcasts like The Big Strong Leicester Boys are only growing louder.

The aftermath of Good Friday’s defeat to Bristol City was met by a mixed reception in the away end at Ashton Gate, with some directing their anger towards the players and manager, while others continued to make their feelings of discontent towards the board be known.

Whichever way Leicester City looks at it, they find themselves at odds with two different leagues, in an ever-harder race for promotion, and clinging onto a breaking bond with sections of their own fanbase.

Winning promotion won’t solve everything, but failure to do so could well see the club lose its battle on all three fronts. 

I said all this to my wife a few days ago and she wasn’t in the least bit interested 

[Dahnsouff]

2 minutes ago, trugerkem said:

I said all this to my wife a few days ago and she wasn’t in the least bit interested 

Strange, I told my wife and she said isn`t this what Leicester always do? 

 

I am beginning to fear she knows things.

[Matt]

7 hours ago, st albans fox said:

It’s obvious - he mentions rudkin

no one else in football knows who he is 

Isn't that showing just how passive and apathetic we are as a fanbase? 

 

Shouldn't we as a fanbase be starting to kick up a fuss, asking for accountability (No pun intended), even simple communication would be a start.

 

I fully appreciate i'm part of that, I perhaps could/should be doing more but as fanbase it needs to be a movement, some of our fans aren't even aware of the issue or even know who certain people are.

[st albans fox]

18 minutes ago, Matt said:

Isn't that showing just how passive and apathetic we are as a fanbase? 

 

Shouldn't we as a fanbase be starting to kick up a fuss, asking for accountability (No pun intended), even simple communication would be a start.

 

I fully appreciate i'm part of that, I perhaps could/should be doing more but as fanbase it needs to be a movement, some of our fans aren't even aware of the issue or even know who certain people are.

Leicester fans know who rudkin is

no one else in football does !

 

hence the writer of the article must be a fan 

[Matt]

3 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Leicester fans know who rudkin is

no one else in football does !

 

hence the writer of the article must be a fan 

 

I'm not disagree about the writer of the article, I'm agreeing with no-one outside of the fanbase (Although there are plenty of Leicester fans who don't know who he is for sure) knows who he is and thus isn't that indictive of our passive, apathetic fanbase.

[sishades]

8 hours ago, davieG said:

it can’t sign new players or renew expiring contracts

This. Holy crap. We could find ourselves with only academy players next season. The only way is down.

[reynard]

12 minutes ago, Matt said:

 

I'm not disagree about the writer of the article, I'm agreeing with no-one outside of the fanbase (Although there are plenty of Leicester fans who don't know who he is for sure) knows who he is and thus isn't that indictive of our passive, apathetic fanbase.

Too true. I feel like we've been mislead at best,possibly lied to at worst, by the club. Sure I recall talk of us not recruiting last season so we could make FFP. Seems like that wasn't correct if the figures being bandied about are anywhere near the truth.

Of course fans can shout their displeasure during and after matches but with the club being privately owned there's really very little they can do in practice apart from boycott the matches en masse, which isn't going to happen.

I will always appreciate what Top and his father did to bring success to the club but right now that is looking potentially a large price to pay for what might be a long long time in the football wilderness, big financial problems an short terms squad issues.

Hope I'm wrong but I fear for the next few years without promotion which is looking less likely by the day.

Edited 31 March by reynard

[worth_the_wait]

8 hours ago, davieG said:

A decent summing up.

 

https://talksport.com/football/1808306/leicester-championship-psr-charges-promotion/

 

...

I've not read too much of the previous 105 pages.      But I'd say ... an absolute 100% perfect summing up.   

[sishades]

The bright side is that in a couple of years we may get at a shot at winning League 2. A full house is something to be proud of.

[foxes_rule1978]

6 minutes ago, sishades said:

The bright side is that in a couple of years we may get at a shot at winning League 2. A full house is something to be proud of.

Is this whilst we battle with Chelsea and Man C

Edited 31 March by foxes_rule1978

[Free Falling Foxes]

8 hours ago, davieG said:

A decent summing up.

 

https://talksport.com/football/1808306/leicester-championship-psr-charges-promotion/

 

Leicester City are battling a three-part war – and risk losing every single one
Charlie Carmichael

As we approach eight years since Leicester’s Premier League miracle, the club now finds itself in the midst of a crisis.

Good Friday’s defeat to Bristol City marked a fifth loss in eight, leaving The Foxes outside of the Championship’s automatic promotion places, having previously held a 17-point lead earlier in the season.

 

Leicester are on a slippery slope
For any club, squandering an immediate return to the Premier League would be a huge concern, but for Leicester, it could prove the difference between operational stability and a wildly uncertain future.

That’s because their on-pitch struggles are exaggerated tenfold by the impending threat of sanctions, levelled at the club by both the Premier League and EFL, following its alleged breaches of profit and sustainability regulations.

And so, Leicester find themselves battling on three fronts: on the pitch, off the pitch, and in the stands.

 

The Board vs. The League(s)
Cast your mind back to the summer of 2021. Leicester were coming off the back of two consecutive fifth-placed finishes and ambitions were at an all-time high.

Up to this point, the club’s finances had adhered to a strict business model: sell one star asset each summer, and reinvest the funds appropriately across specific areas of the club.

Some were like-for-like – with N’Golo Kanté eventually being replaced by Wilfred Ndidi – while others were more strategic, like leveraging the sale of Harry Maguire to fund the club’s brand new, first-in-class training facility.

2021 brought with it a change in mindset, where Leicester took the proverbial leap from an underdog mentality to wanting to establish themselves as an elite club. And in their eyes, that meant spending money like an elite club.

Leicester have an existential crisis on their hands
The player sale drawbridge was pulled up, and in came the likes of Patson Daka, Boubakary Soumaré, and Jannik Vestergaard for big fees and wages. This was Leicester’s statement of intent: we’ve rubbed shoulders with the big boys for some time, and now, we’re here to stay.

That dream was swiftly shattered by an eighth-placed finish and relegation the season after. The club crashed into the second division with the Premier League's seventh-highest wage bill.

Whether you saw the board’s outlay as ambitious management or financial negligence is subjective, but the club had gambled, spending beyond its means to keep pace with others whose revenue dwarfed their’s, and ultimately, lost out big time.

The true financial mire remained shrouded in a layer of mystery for supporters, who were largely kept in the dark as to the extent of its precariousness. The sales of James Maddison and Harvey Barnes were followed by reinvestment into the squad, which to most suggested the club was stable and complying with the relevant processes.

This faith proved to be unfounded. Leicester entered into a behind-the-scenes tug of war with the EFL, who tried to get the club to submit a business plan, which would demonstrate how it planned to align itself with financial fair play.

Leicester refused, exploiting something of a loophole in the rules by arguing that, because it was a Premier League club for all three seasons in question, the EFL’s demands were outside of the league’s jurisdiction. 

Legal proceedings followed and Leicester duly won their argument over the technicality, but it set the wheels in motion for both the EFL and Premier League to hone in on Leicester as a red-hot target.

The club has since been charged with allegedly breaching PSR, and been placed under a player registration embargo, effectively meaning it can’t sign new players or renew expiring contracts, of which there are plenty come this summer.

Maresca's men could be in real trouble if they don't get promoted

And so, Leicester find themselves embroiled in a gruelling legal battle against both the Premier League and the EFL, desperately trying to argue a case that ostensibly looks illogical.

It’s broadly accepted by everyone outside of the club that Leicester have overspent, and haven’t had anywhere near the required incoming revenue to offset it. Commercial deals, merchandise and ticket sales, and player trading are all well behind where they’d need to be.

A points deduction feels inevitable – although Leicester seem to have dragged their heels enough to ensure this will come next season due to time constraints – regardless of what division the club finds itself in.

A place in the Premier League would mean a tasty slice of television money, perhaps allowing Leicester to retain its star assets, and hopefully not falling foul of PSR by such an alarming margin. 

A place in the Championship… well, that could mean a firesale of players for cut-price fees, an embargo to prevent any replacements, and a hefty points deduction to kick the season off. 

It paints the picture of promotion being a necessity.

 

The Team vs. Promotion
So what about promotion? The Foxes looked to be cruising back to the Premier League in second gear around Christmas time. Boasting a 17-point lead in the automatic promotion race and a playing style befitting of a top flight side.
Manager Enzo Maresca has been lauded since his arrival. Not only for the results he’s brought, but also the way he’s been able to transform the squad from looking utterly rudderless under Brendan Rodgers to reinvigorated and hungry to bounce straight back.

His tactics have been called into question at times – opting for a methodical, possession-based style that relies heavily on patience and technique – but by and large, once the wins started flooding in, fans hopped aboard the bandwagon.

All that has changed since the turn of the year. Off-pitch drama appears to have infiltrated the players’ mindset, and Championship opponents are beginning to develop a blueprint of how to nullify this Leicester side.

The lack of signings in January certainly didn’t help matters, and injuries to key players such as Ricardo Pereira and Ndidi have made Maresca’s task more problematic, but week by week, that 17-point lead was slowly chipped away.

This level of self-implosion is nothing new to Leicester. The aforementioned consecutive fifth-placed finishes both came about after spending the vast majority of the season comfortably inside the top four, while last year’s journey to relegation was punctuated by the media and fans alike playing down the warning signs, stating the club was ‘far too good to go down’.

Now those same mental frailties are coming to the surface again, with the players hopelessly floundering, all while watching promotion rivals Leeds and Ipswich show a level of grit and resilience seldom seen at the King Power Stadium in recent weeks.

Maresca is not above this criticism, either. Those same detractors from earlier in the season are back, lambasting his footballing philosophy, and are joined by more and more fans each passing week.

In an idyllic environment, with limited distractions and deep pockets to sign players with unrivalled technique, this style of play is hard to argue against. But belligerently overlooking players outside of the starting XI, persisting with a system that opponents are increasingly negating, and consistently pointing to one or two chances being created as proof of success is wearing thin for some.

Leicester looked all-but certain to win promotion a matter of weeks ago
All of this adds up to a group of players who look bereft of belief and a manager who won’t compromise his tactics, competing in a campaign that will require a record points tally to achieve automatic promotion.

As of right now, it’s not looking great. 

 

The Club vs. The Fans
The battle with both leagues and the one for promotion are, by their very nature, starting to accentuate a third – a rift with the club’s own fans.

Leicester have long been held up as a model of how all other smaller clubs should operate, balancing ambition with prudence, placing emphasis on the academy and recruitment, and channelling an underdog spirit that echoes throughout the stands.

How the club is perceived externally has always been important to the ownership, whether it’s as big as defying the odds to win Premier Leagues and FA Cups, or something as novel as gifting free donuts to everyone in attendance.

And the ownership has been overwhelmingly celebrated down the years by the fanbase, who to this day belt out ‘Vichai had a dream’ on matchdays in recognition of their late owner who, as the song goes, allowed them to sing that they were indeed the champions of England.

As time has passed, though, and the stewardship of the club has fallen to Vichai’s son, Khun Top, there have been murmurs of quiet discontent. For the most part, these haven’t been aimed towards Top, but rather his right-hand man, Director of Football Jon Rudkin.

It is Rudkin who is perceived to be the person overseeing so much of the operational mismanagement, whether that’s acquiring underwhelming signings on astronomical wages, failing to offload middle-of-the road squad players, or sticking by Rodgers through thick and thin, only to then relieve him of his duties beyond the point of return.

The only criticism levelled at Top thus far has been his apparent blind loyalty to those around him. The club conducted an internal investigation into the issues that led to relegation last summer, which from the outside looking in, appears to have changed very little in regards to how Leicester is being run.

The reason most of this is assumed and not known, is down to a distinct lack of transparency from the club, who have done very little to communicate with fans in recent years.

The above, combined with a plethora of contentious decisions surrounding the matchday atmosphere and ticket sales – in addition to a serious code of conduct breach which led to the dismissal of Women’s manager, Willie Kirk, over an alleged relationship with a player – has slowly started to erode the trust between the club and its supporters.

Some fans have now begun calling for changes to be made at the top of the club, and disgruntled voices across sites like The Fosse Way and podcasts like The Big Strong Leicester Boys are only growing louder.

The aftermath of Good Friday’s defeat to Bristol City was met by a mixed reception in the away end at Ashton Gate, with some directing their anger towards the players and manager, while others continued to make their feelings of discontent towards the board be known.

Whichever way Leicester City looks at it, they find themselves at odds with two different leagues, in an ever-harder race for promotion, and clinging onto a breaking bond with sections of their own fanbase.

Winning promotion won’t solve everything, but failure to do so could well see the club lose its battle on all three fronts. 

Not all felt, 'while last year’s journey to relegation was punctuated by the media and fans alike playing down the warning signs, stating the club was ‘far too good to go down’.

 

There was many - ok, some - who were seeing where we were heading at least 18 months earlier.

To this day, I cannot comprehend how an apparent vast majority could not see the shitshow we were heading towards.

And this isn't hindsight, the doomsayers posts and concerns are a matter of record on this forum.

[Lionator]

 

Not us but this thread is wild. Everton are screwed. 

[LVFox]

Everton have just released their accounts. General consensus of those respected on these kind of things is a £30m breach of PSR over the 3 year period. They could get hit pretty hard!

[Wymsey]

Just now, Lionator said:

 

Not us but this thread is wild. Everton are screwed. 

They'll find a way out of it, am sure..

[UniFox21]

Just a reminder that PSR was brought in to stop teams getting into issues

[STUHILL]

17 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

Just a reminder that PSR was brought in to stop teams getting into issues

really? I thought it was to help the "Big 6" maintain their dominance and stop clubs like Leicester ever challenging them. 

[Corky]

What fabulous company we are keeping.

[Wymsey]

The Man City situation on this seems very quiet..

[st albans fox]

24 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

Just a reminder that PSR was brought in to stop teams getting into issues

If I were playing devils advocate then I might express that without the constraints of psr then Everton could be in a level of debt that might not be recoverable