{"id":438111,"date":"2026-01-28T07:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T07:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/438111\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T07:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T07:08:07","slug":"aiyawatt-srivaddhanaprabha-its-love-and-pain-leicester-is-like-my-son-so-i-have-to-do-it-right-leicester-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/438111\/","title":{"rendered":"Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha: \u2018It\u2019s love and pain. Leicester is like my son, so I have to do it right\u2019 | Leicester City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leicester City are hurting but Aiyawatt \u201cTop\u201d Srivaddhanaprabha, looking towards the pitch at the King Power Stadium, insists he shares supporters\u2019 frustrations. He acknowledges the warm glow of their extraordinary Premier League title win<\/a> almost a decade ago has long faded. He watches every game, which sometimes means tuning in from Thailand in the early hours. An 8pm kick-off in England is a 3am start in Bangkok.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see the real passion of the players and the performance,\u201d the chair says. \u201cWhen it is not there, I can\u2019t sleep, so it\u2019s love and pain. Leicester is like my son. So I have to do it right. Of course, a son can be naughty, a son can fail the exam, a pain in your head. The son can be top of the class, graduate, have a bad girlfriend or good wife, you never know. So I feel the same, but the love is there. The responsibility is there. The first thing for me is to identify the problem and fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lot has changed since 12 August 2010, his first day, and he is talking with the club at its lowest ebb since the death of his father, Vichai, in a helicopter crash outside the stadium<\/a> in 2018. Every time Srivaddhanaprabha arrives at the ground, he passes a bronze statue of his father, inaugurated four years ago. \u201cI know what his plan was, so I want to keep doing the same,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vision from myself and my father was so clear: we wanted success long term for the club. We did three years in the Championship<\/a> and then were promoted top of the league. In almost 16 years, we have won five trophies, we\u2019ve had two relegations, three times in Europe. It\u2019s like a movie. It\u2019s like a super drama on Netflix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leicester are 14th in the Championship and on Sunday sacked their manager, Mart\u00ed Cifuentes<\/a>, six months into a three-year contract. The last time they were in the division, three seasons ago, they were promoted as champions<\/a>, but five years on from sitting third in the Premier League, three points off the summit, some fans fear the club returning to League One for the first time since 2008-09. How does Srivaddhanaprabha see things? \u201cWith this squad, we should not be relegated again. The players need support from the fans big time. Because nobody wants to see us play in League One. I\u2019m sure that we still have a chance to get back, in this table, to the playoffs at least. The aim is still there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players know a lot; when you stand there on the pitch, the pressure from the stands is huge and they feel it. If the fans are really negative, it\u2019s not easy. But I know that\u2019s not from the performances alone. The club needs to help the fans to get back to that position again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leicester\u2019s loss to Oxford United on Saturday was the end of the road for Mart\u00ed Cifuentes (centre). Photograph: Mike Egerton\/PA<\/p>\n

This is Srivaddhanaprabha\u2019s first interview with British media in almost 10 years. The questions have been stacking up since Leicester\u2019s shock relegation in 2022-23, two years after winning the FA Cup<\/a> and 12 months after reaching the Conference League semi-finals. \u201cWe tried everything and we did a lot of things to make sure that the Premier League \u2013 even football in the UK \u2013 looked very interesting,\u201d he says. \u201cAt that time, the pressure from the fans and the ambition of the club was there. If we didn\u2019t do anything, I [would] have pressure from the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n

What can he say about profitability and sustainability regulations? The club are awaiting the verdict of a disciplinary commission after a legal hearing in November, with the prospect of a points deduction for alleged breaches of financial rules in 2023-24, when they won the Championship. Leicester did not envisage being relegated the previous season and there is a sense that the past is haunting the present. Limited headroom means they are likely to target loan signings before February\u2019s transfer deadline.<\/p>\n

Srivaddhanaprabha puts his hands to his throat. \u201cIt is difficult because to comply, everything that we did before is not easy, but we did it every year. And this year was also the same. We have to comply. I don\u2019t want to have that problem again, because it\u2019s a pain. I am sure many other clubs are not saying anything but feel the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does he regret not talking sooner? \u201cI know it has been too long. In 2010 I was [speaking] every two or three months and it was not a problem. I am not trying to hide.\u201d<\/p>\n

He, together with the director of football, Jon Rudkin, and Kamonthip Netthanomsak, the interim managing director, met with the club\u2019s fan advisory board before Saturday\u2019s defeat to Oxford United<\/a>. Rudkin, the most influential figure in the football operation after starting as a coach in the academy, is the subject of fierce scrutiny from supporters, though Srivaddhanaprabha insists he, the manager and the head of recruitment, Martyn Glover, decide on signings as a collective. Gone are the days of being lauded for landing Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and N\u2019Golo Kant\u00e9 for peanuts. \u201cNo club buys the right players all the time. We used to be very good … it\u2019s not about Jon choosing players alone, [and] blaming him. Everyone has to share the responsibility, all four of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leicester are close to appointing a technical director to work with Rudkin, who has held his position since 2014. \u201cJon is [seen as] like a bad cop \u2026 when we won the Premier League, it\u2019s because of Jon too. But nobody talks about that any more \u2026 I think he needs support and that is why I\u2019ve come to my decision to change the structure to make sure everything is in the right way going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha alongside Jon Rudkin (left), Leicester\u2019s long-serving director of football. Photograph: James Gill\/Danehouse\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The pandemic hampered the Thai owner\u2019s duty-free business, which employs about 7,000 staff, but relegation in 2023, after finishing eighth, fifth and fifth, delivered a jolt. They were relegated with the biggest wage bill outside of the so-called \u201cbig six\u201d, two years after moving into their state-of-the-art training base. Nobody saw it coming after nine successive top-flight seasons, particularly with Vardy in attack, a midfield featuring Youri Tielemans, James Maddison, Harvey Barnes and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, plus Brendan Rodgers in the dugout.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still do not understand why we go down. I talked to a lot of players at that time. I think the main problem was we had no experience of a relegation fight. We were so relaxed that we were going to be OK. What I heard is: \u2018Boss, don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ll be OK.\u2019 We were not OK \u2026 I could not play so I tried to help every single aspect that I could. I can get in, talk to them, shake them up, whatever I could do, I did it. The Premier League is difficult, but we shouldn\u2019t have been in that position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leicester had to swallow some of their pride. \u201cWe grew bigger and bigger and we forgot what we were before. We thought we are here,\u201d he says, raising his right hand, \u201cand that is the most dangerous position to be in. Even myself I felt the same at the time \u2026 we should realise we can be small, we can be big, from the results and the performances.\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiles and covers his face as he is reminded of the time, at the end of the 2013-14 season, after Nigel Pearson led Leicester into the Premier League, his father stated his desire to qualify for the Champions League within three years. \u201cBefore he went on to the stage in Thailand, I was with him and said: \u2018Don\u2019t say anything like that, we have to be the underdog.\u2019\u201d They reached the quarter-finals of the competition in 2016-17 and an Atl\u00e9tico Madrid shirt, a nod to that run, is among the mementos in the stadium reception. \u201cI want to do it again, but I know football is not mathematics. When we won the league, no one believed or thought we could win.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is hurt at the noise from the stands. Srivaddhanaprabha has received abuse and threats. Has he considered selling the club? \u201cThe first day I came in with my father, we loved football and we loved the club. I still feel every bit the same. I said in my first interview, when I was 25, that I wanted to be in this for the long term.<\/p>\n

\u201cSelling the club is not the way to exit anyway. I have to make sure that I complete everything that I did here before I want to leave. Now I need to make sure the club is in a good place. Then, if some prince comes in, maybe yes, and the club can be like Manchester City, for example \u2026 but I am sure that [there] is a long, long way to go. I still love it here, I want to make sure the club is successful again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leicester City are hurting but Aiyawatt \u201cTop\u201d Srivaddhanaprabha, looking towards the pitch at the King Power Stadium, insists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-438111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}