The deadline King Power set has passed, and yet a sale for Leicester City has yet to materialise. The situation is leaving LCFC in a tough spot, stuck in League One with a massive squad, and it is made only worse by a financial challenge they were never expected to face. Changes are needed, and yet a sale still seems too far away.
Kuhn Top struggles to sell Leicester
Leicester City owner Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha put the club up for sale after their relegation to League One, leaving the former Premier League and FA Cup champions struggling to regain their position and unable to pay the wages they were accustomed to. The result has been catastrophic.
So many talented and untalented players had to leave in the previous window, and despite major players being forced to leave in prior windows too, the Foxes have yet to get back to a sustainable footing. This is one of the reasons which leads Simon Jordan to expect that Kuhn Top is expecting far too much with their £200m price tag on the League One side.
"The premise of paying someone £200 million for a football club in League One, irrespective of whether it’s a former Premier League winner, is not going to happen... if the only course of action is administration, then that might result in a new owner coming in"Simon Jordan, via Football League World
It is true to say that £200m is a lot of money for a club in League One, even a club with such impressive assets as the King Power Stadium and Seagrave Training Centre, both of which are the best in the division and still remain high-class despite our current predicament. However, even if a buyer were prepared to fork out the £200m asking price, the chairman has another requirement.
King Power want to respect the legacy of Kuhn Vichai, our late owner, who did so much for the community of Leicester, put the Foxes back on the map, and restored LCFC to a respectable and strong Premier League side. That was a long shadow cast for 'Top' to live in, and with poor performances and multiple relegations, supporters' ire was always going to be on the cards.
To 'respect' his legacy, they want to sell only to the right buyer. This would mean an owner they believe would invest in the community, care about the history of the club, and not turn the side into nothing more than a financial asset. To be fair to King Power, in recent years, LCFC must have been a real money sink for them. That being said, it is a sink they blew a hole in with haphazard managerial appointments and disastrous recruitment windows, with Jon Rudkin leading the charge.
To keep the club afloat, the East Midland's side have converted £8.5m of debt into equity, meaning they have written off this debt, made additional shares available, and therefore covered part of the costs of falling into League One. This is a plaster: they need to get out of the division or sell up. Without one of the two happening, they cannot keep injecting cash in this way; it is unsustainable, and they could head into administration.
As Jordan said, though, if they are forced into administration, Leicester City's owners would equally be forced to lower the asking price to an amount prospective buyers might actually bite at. For now, though, it seems as if Kuhn Top shall persevere until either high waters or an ark comes to save the ailing English football giants.
At the least, any buyer will inherit a revolutionised squad and a reduced wage bill, but a difficult circumstance should Wout Faes and Woyo Coulibaly remain at the club. Their wages are inflated compared to the other players, and a sale would do wonders to help stave off major issues. Again, though, it seems the window to offload these two high earners is coming to an abrupt close.
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