The Sports Guru
Leicester City's asking price is public, but the paperwork behind it tells two different stories about the same club. This article breaks down what King Power are actually selling, what their brochure leaves out, and why the answer to "who buys the Foxes?" is not straightforward.
Leicester City has been placed on the market with a price tag above £200m, and the marketing document circulated to potential buyers glosses over exactly where the club is playing this season. King Power, the Thai family that has controlled Leicester for 16 years, appear ready to step aside, based on an eight-page booklet compiled by investment bank Citigroup that BBC Sport has reviewed. The paper, called "Project Lineup", catalogues the men's team, the women's side, King Power Stadium, the Seagrave training base and Belgian affiliate OH Leuven as items available to a buyer. One detail barely surfaces: Leicester now compete in League One.
A brochure built on 2016, not 2026
History does a lot of the selling. The brochure celebrates the against-the-odds 2016 title, won at odds of 5,000-1, plus the FA Cup success that followed five years afterwards, and positions Leicester as one of just five English clubs since 2000 to have lifted the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup. Buyers are told this represents "a rare opportunity to acquire a club with an excellent track record of winning promotions to higher divisions" - striking phrasing given Leicester has just endured consecutive drops in the league table, falling from the Premier League into the Championship and now into League One, a third-tier return the club has experienced only once before.
That omission is the whole story here. A brochure can legitimately sell a stadium and a training ground. It cannot sell context it has chosen to leave out, and Leicester's route into League One does not appear in the document at all.
What's actually for sale
Citigroup's numbers put the tangible assets - the club itself, King Power Stadium with its 32,000 capacity, the Seagrave training base (completed in 2020, now valued at £121m), the women's team and OH Leuven - at more than £200m. There is no standalone price attached to the football side of the business: the men's and women's playing squads, or the cost of rebuilding a team freshly relegated from the Championship, sit outside that headline number.
The debt the brochure doesn't show
The brochure does highlight turnover - Citigroup projects more than £97m for the 2026 financial year - but leaves out what the club's 2025 accounts show: £103.6m owed in bank loans. The losses are absent too. Leicester shuttled between the Premier League and the Championship in recent years, dropping out of the top flight twice within a three-season span between 2023 and 2025, and lost more than £180m in the process.
The academy claims hold up better. The document praises a scouting and development setup that is "consistently producing top players," and the £10m sale of academy graduate Jeremy Monga to Manchester City last month gives that boast a concrete example. It's one of the few sections of the brochure where the sales pitch and the facts actually agree.
Why King Power might finally be ready to go
The Srivaddhanaprabha family's King Power vehicle acquired Leicester from Milan Mandaric for £35m back in 2010. Khun Aiyawatt "Top" Srivaddhanaprabha now holds the chairmanship, a role he inherited after his father Khun Vichai was killed in a helicopter crash near the stadium in 2019. Talk of a sale first surfaced via the Financial Times in July, and this newly circulated brochure is the strongest public signal so far that fresh investors are being lined up.
This comes eight months after Khun Top publicly accepted responsibility for the team's downturn. Supporters have been pushing for a sale for a while now, with the loudest demonstrations happening outside the ground once the drop from the Championship was made official last season. The on-field slide has also lined up with money troubles at King Power's Thai duty-free operation, a business that has long been intertwined with the family's ownership of the club.
Who buys a third-tier club for £200m?
Leicester chose not to comment when BBC Sport approached them about the brochure. Regardless of ownership, results on the pitch keep moving: Russell Martin's squad opens its League One campaign away to Notts County this Saturday, with the club sitting at its lowest league position since 2009.
There's real substance behind the sales pitch. The trophies are genuine, the training centre is a legitimate asset, and the academy has just delivered a £10m sale to Manchester City. Yet anyone assessing a £200m-plus package of assets also has to reckon with £103.6m in bank debt, losses topping £180m across three seasons, and a club that begins this year in the third tier. As BBC Radio Leicester's Owynn Palmer-Atkin summarised: "who wants to buy Leicester City?" The brochure offers one answer. The accounts tell a messier version.
Frequently Asked Questions
King Power, the club's Thai owners, appear ready to step away after 16 years running Leicester. News of a sale first emerged via the Financial Times in July, and a Citigroup-produced brochure is now being shown to prospective buyers.
Citigroup values the physical assets - stadium, training base and both squads' infrastructure - at more than £200m, but places no separate price on the football operations themselves.
The document names the men's and women's sides, King Power Stadium, the Seagrave training base (valued at £121m) and Belgian affiliate OH Leuven as the assets on offer.
The 2025 accounts show £103.6m in bank loans. Leicester also lost more than £180m across the seasons it moved between the Premier League and the Championship, a stretch that included two drops from the top flight between 2023 and 2025.
The Srivaddhanaprabha family's King Power group has controlled Leicester since 2010, having paid £35m to buy the club from Milan Mandaric. Khun Aiyawatt "Top" Srivaddhanaprabha now serves as chairman.
Research: This article uses the archived evidence supplied for this story. Story inspiration: BBC Sport's original report.