King Power’s Leicester City rock the world with Premier League triumph

UK/THAILAND. Leicester City Football Club, owned by Thai travel retailer King Power International Group of Companies, is today celebrating the astounding achievement of winning the English Premier League.

The club, bought by a King Power-led consortium in 2010, defied the pundits, the bookmakers and pre-season odds of 5,000-1 to claim the Premier League crown last night after nearest rivals Tottenham Hotspur could only draw 2-2 at Chelsea.

The team of supposed journeymen, unknowns and rejects from other clubs has lost only three games in a season described by one pundit as the “most unlikely triumph in the history of team sport”.

Gianni Infantino, President of world football governing body FIFA, told reporters that Leicester’s “beautiful story” was a “fairy tale”. UK Prime Minister David Cameron said it was “an extraordinary, thoroughly deserved, Premier League title”.

Leicester’s land of hope and glory

It is a tale of nearly men become heroes. Of journeymen turned superstars. Of rejects rendered champions. But also of humility, belief and sensible investment.

Click on the icon to read how we viewed Leicester City’s triumph on The Moodie Blog

For King Power the success is the richest possible vindication of Chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s decision to invest in the ultra-competitive English football world in 2010. Back then Leicester City was only a Championship club (one level below the Premier League) and Vichai’s pledge to one day take Leicester into Europe (the Champions League – for which only the top teams in each European domestic league qualify) was widely dismissed as fanciful.

But Vichai knew precisely what he was doing, running the club with the same business acumen and resilience that has allowed him to build King Power into a duty free powerhouse, investing in resources, players and quality management.

With the club adroitly run by King Power Senior Executive Vice President Susan Whelan (one of the very few women CEOs in English football), Leicester City carefully avoided the various excesses that so often characterise English football, spending prudently but wisely and making the inspired decision to hire veteran Italian manager Claudio Ranieri at the start of this season.

Ranieri’s appointment in place of the popular Nigel Pearson (whose team had managed to stave off almost certain relegation the season before) was heavily criticised. The Guardian newspaper wrote: “If Leicester wanted someone nice, they’ve got him. If they wanted someone to keep them in the Premier league, they may have gone for the wrong guy.”

But the King Power management and their football advisors were convinced they had the right guy. History has proven them correct in the most thrilling, startling, odds-defying manner possible.