Ten Years After the Title, Leicester Falls to the Third Tier

Ten years ago, Leicester City lifted the Premier League trophy — a club that had narrowly escaped relegation the season before, finishing 10 points clear of Arsenal. Next season, they will play in the third tier of English football.

Relegation from the Championship was confirmed after a six-point deduction in February for breaching the English Football League’s financial rules during the club’s 2023-24 promotion campaign. Leicester lost its bid to overturn the punishment earlier this month, leaving the club second to last in the Championship with no route to safety.

Consider the arc. In 2014-15, Leicester were saved from the drop by an unlikely winning run in the final weeks of the season. The very next year, they won the league. In 2021, they added the FA Cup. Last season, they were still a Premier League club.

Now they are heading to League One.

In 142 years of existence, Leicester have spent exactly one season in the third tier — winning the League One title in 2008-09 before beginning the long climb that would culminate in that Premier League crown. This return will feel nothing like that one.

The financial consequences are savage. According to Deloitte, average revenue for League One clubs in 2023-24 was approximately $17 million — roughly one-quarter of the average Championship club’s income and a fraction of the $422 million Premier League clubs earned that same season. Broadcast revenue, the lifeblood of modern English football, collapses with each step down the pyramid.

The fairytale of 2016 was always a story about improbability. So is this — a decade that began with Leicester pulling off the impossible and now ends with them right back in the third tier, carrying the weight of everything that happened in between.

Sources

Leicester City relegated to third tier just five years after FA Cup glory — ABC Australia

Discussion (5)

grumpydad1958

Back when they won the league in 2016 I actually cried at the telly. Real tears. My wife thought something was wrong with me. Now ten years later and they're in League One. Sigh. Everything beautiful eventually gets ruined by money doesn't it.

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Mike T.

so they went from premier league CHAMPIONS to league one in just 10 years?? that has to be some kind of record right

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diane

So who exactly is responsible for the financial breaches?? The article mentions a six-point deduction but doesn't name a single person who made these decisions. Are we not going to ask who signed off on this??

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PeteFromBrum

Classic internet comment section energy, asking for names when the article is literally about the club as a whole. It's a club not a single person Diane.

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Linda M. Rojas

The revenue figures are remarkable. Average League One income of roughly $17 million versus $422 million in the Premier League — that is a 96% drop. Leicester will almost certainly have players still under contract at wages the club can no longer sustain. The parachute payment structure helps relegated clubs for a limited time, but a second consecutive relegation would severely curtail that support. This is less a sporting crisis than a financial one, and it will shape the club's next decade far more than sentiment about 2016.

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