According to British media reports, Leicester City have been docked six points over financial irregularities and risk suffering back-to-back relegations to England’s League One. Journalists state that the club’s "complacency" in signing player contracts—failing to include the common relegation wage cut clauses—has left exorbitant wage bills crippling the team today.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Leicester City’s Premier League title triumph. Yet the Foxes now face relegation. On May 2, 2016, Leicester City clinched the title early, securing the first top-flight championship in the club’s 142-year history.
On May 2, 2026, they will face Blackburn Rovers. Having been deducted six points for breaching the Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), their Championship status is now hanging by a thread. Leicester have picked up just one point from their last four games, sitting on the brink of the relegation zone and only avoiding it by virtue of a better goal difference.
Journalists have analysed how Leicester City ended up in this predicament and what the future holds.
The Premier League title was merely the start of Leicester’s glorious era. In 2021, they won their first and only FA Cup in club history. They featured in a Champions League campaign and two Europa League tournaments, and were beaten by Roma in the 2021-22 Europa Conference League semi-finals.
Finishing eighth in two consecutive seasons led the club’s board to act—and spend—as if this was their natural position.
Yet just 12 months after that defeat to Roma, Leicester City were relegated from the Premier League.
Lynn Wraith, Chair of the Leicester City Supporters’ Trust, told journalists: “We tried to compete with the big clubs but were out of our depth. It didn’t fit our model, not for a club of our size, nor our budget. And then we just plummeted.”
In the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, Leicester City spent just over £100 million to sign six players.
The problem is not just transfer fees, but wages and contracts. The club’s wage bill soared to £206 million.
Football finance expert Kieran Maguire told journalists: “Everyone thought they were a top-eight club, and they budgeted accordingly, without accounting for potential setbacks.”
Leicester City became "a little complacent" with their contracts. Premier League player contracts usually include clauses that cut wages by 30% to 50% in the event of relegation, but it is widely reported that Leicester included no such terms at the time.
Kieran Maguire added: “They had a terrible season and had no flexibility with relegation or survival clauses. It seems these contracts were signed without considering the existential risk of relegation.”
In the 2022-23 relegation season, the club spent 116% of its revenue on wages. That figure stood at 102% in 2023-24, with a £107 million wage bill "unprecedented for a Championship club".
Leicester City won the Championship in 2024, but it came at a huge cost—an enormous one. The other two teams relegated with Leicester the previous year, Leeds United and Southampton, had wage bills of £84 million and £80 million respectively. The median wage bill for a Championship club is £29 million.
Wraith said the Supporters’ Trust deemed these budgets "extremely high-risk". "There were not enough safeguards for things going wrong," she said. “We were all saying, what if we get relegated? The fans could see the problems coming.”
After promotion in 2024, the club still had to grapple with financial issues. As early as March 2024, the Premier League had brought charges against the club for PSR breaches, a sign of trouble to come. The club successfully appealed on a technicality over jurisdiction.
Subsequent spending in the Championship then saw them exceed the PSR threshold by £20.8 million, leading to the points deduction.
Leicester City failed to stay in the Premier League to ease their troubles, and the Foxes were relegated back to the Championship last season.
Kieran Maguire said: “They’ve relied on selling players to dig themselves out of an almighty mess, and if you keep selling your best players, you’ll eventually reap what you sow.”
Where next for Leicester City?
Leicester City has a long record of battles with financial rules. In 2018, the club had to pay £3.1 million to the EFL to settle a dispute over their 2013-14 Championship title win. This time, they have been deducted points for spending during their 2024 Championship title success.
King Power International Group, which bought the club in 2010, insists the club has done nothing wrong. Responding to the points deduction on Thursday, the group said the penalty was "disproportionate" and "failed to give sufficient weight to the mitigating factors presented".
In its written reasons, the disciplinary panel rejected Leicester’s claim that they had shown "exceptional cooperation". The club’s current owners have contested all financial charges at every stage, leading to numerous delays. Time ran out this week—and things could have been worse. One sanction mechanism proposed by the Premier League would have seen them docked 12 points.
Wraith said: “A lot of fans are saying don’t appeal, for God’s sake stop fighting, admit you messed up. Take the punishment, knuckle down and get out of the relegation mire. Every time you go to a game, you think it can’t get worse, but it does. And that was before we were deducted points.”
Marti Cifuentes was sacked after just six months in charge, and Leicester City currently have no manager, nor a permanent chief executive or technical director.
Wraith said fans are tired of the "lack of transparency and accountability", and protests are likely to escalate. Fans boycotted the match against West Brom last month. The official attendance was given as 27,130, as all season ticket holders are counted, but the Supporters’ Trust believes the actual crowd was closer to 12,500.
"Our King Power OUT movement is growing, new protest groups are emerging, and different groups are uniting," Wraith said.
Leicester City have played in England’s third tier just once in their history, winning promotion as champions 17 years ago. A decade after Claudio Ranieri’s fairytale Premier League triumph, the Foxes could be heading back to League One.
