Tainted love: What will the King Power legacy be now?
Two days after a shocking set of accounts put the club’s future into stark reality, Jamie Barnard is still just as furious with those who’ve overseen the chaos – and ponders a legacy in serious question.
“Accountability keeps standards high.”
It’s February 2017, and I find myself trotting this line out repeatedly as I try to explain to fans of other clubs on Twitter why the sacking of Claudio Ranieri is the right call. This bizarre notion, peddled by some of the biggest pundits in the country, that Ranieri had earned the right to take us to a level lower than that at which he’d picked us up in, seemed to be getting traction.
Fast forward seven years, and where has the accountability gone at Leicester City Football Club?
As a financial bombshell has blown off the fragile mask that fooled the majority of the country into believing Leicester were a ‘well-run club’, it’s high time we saw some accountability return.
Because there was certainly none as Brendan Rodgers seemed to be doing his best to talk his way out of a job, undermining his players, the club, the fans, or essentially anyone or anything that would fast track him to a P45. As he gave week after week of disgraceful press conferences or post-match interviews, you had to wonder if anyone in the club was taking him to task on the effect his words were having.
There certainly wasn’t any in the summer when a relegation that many fans had been warning was coming for months was finally realised. What we got instead was news of an internal review that apparently found all was hunky dory and there was no need for change at senior management or board level. And a statement from owner Top which, TLDR, could be condensed down to: “Stop being mean to me, we won the Premier League once”.
There was no accountability when our player trading was a disgrace. When it was fine to send a fax 14 seconds late and leave a multi-million pound asset sat in the stands for months while being perfectly fit to play, or when numerous international players walked away for zilch having been allowed to run their contracts down. Director of Football, Jon Rudkin, has been appearing to direct little more than an absolute circus.
There was no accountability when the club was fined £880,000 by the Competition & Markets Authority for ripping fans off over shirt sales. Or when they refused to engage with the Foxes Trust as they sought assurances over the management of the club in the summer. Or when the lack of general sale of match tickets - leaving empty seats in the stadium and locking out future generations of fans - was reversed but then quietly rolled back again in favour of peddling costly memberships.
Lonely at the Top
And now, as the chickens come home to roost, there seems to be little communication from the club as we choose to wage war on both the Premier League and EFL simultaneously. We’ve squirmed our way through loopholes and interpretations of legislation to play the victim and protest our innocence, all whilst knowing a monumentally damning financial result was about to drop.
Fire up the “stop being mean to me” template, top and tail it with some thinly veiled legal threats, and crack on.
The fish rots from the head down. And we’ve had a head loss. Top, barely at the King Power Stadium when he hasn’t got an on-pitch marriage proposal to make. Communicating only through programme notes likely penned by the Communications Director and given a cursory glance for sign-off. Perfecting the look of disdain as Union FS unfurled a, ‘Board, the time to act is now’ banner whilst we still had time aplenty to avoid the most avoidable relegation the Premier League has ever seen.
I’m seeing another little line crop up in recent weeks and months that, if we’re being honest, is pure conjecture: this would never have happened under Vichai. I’m going to go there, fellow Leicester City fans – I think it’s nonsense.
There were plenty of mistakes and shortcomings under Vichai too. Let’s not forget that one of the first things we had to do on arrival back to the Premier League in 2014 was pay a fine to the EFL for our financial misdemeanours. Debts racked up chasing ‘names’ and splurging on bang average players.
But what Vichai did do well was PR. It always irked me, the line that Leicester fans and the chairman had a great relationship. Yes, we never would have achieved what we did without him buying the club and he made wise contributions to our local community but, truth bomb: 95% of Leicester fans wouldn’t recognise his voice and an even higher percentage couldn’t pronounce his surname.
Back in the good old days, financial carelessness was simply mopped up by converting debt into equity. But get forced into an environment where the rules don’t allow you to just do that anymore, and the game changes. Top inherited the burden of a legacy he could never sustain because it was built on a freak sporting performance, and tighter regulations on how an owner could operate.
Own it
What will the King Power legacy be now?
A period of silverware, European tours and some of the best footballing sides ever to have donned the Leicester City shirt. But it’s all been followed – accompanied, even – by financial mismanagement that has resulted in a surge of Foxes Trust memberships for the first time since 2002, and penalties from the footballing authorities likely to set us back years, if not a decade. Kind of taints it a little, don’t you think?
I’ve noticed in the financial reports over the past few years that we pay a substantial ‘management fee’ to King Power. Well, does anyone have the receipt for that? Because I think we might just be due a refund.
Standards slipped. And they continue to do so further with every deception and evasion the club try to pull in the middle of this sorry mess. Accountability keeps standards high, and our lack of it throughout the club has dragged us into the gutter.
Over to you, Top. Any chance of it now? Unless Rudkin and Whelan are packing their bags by the time we’re on the road to Plymouth, and unless he starts the process of a phased sale of the club, then it’ll be like Alex Smithies: you’re regularly told it’s there, but you’ve never seen any sign of it.
Yes we lived the dream, but we might be just about to start the nightmare. In the words of Andrea Bocelli, time to say goodbye.
Join the Foxes Trust for £10: https://foxestrust.co.uk/membership
