Leicester City provisionally relegated from Championship, 10 years after Premier League title
Former Premier League champions Leicester City are set to play in the third tier of English football next season after a 2-2 draw against Hull City on Tuesday night.
Leicester have not played in League One since the 2008-09 campaign.
Liam Millar gave Hull the lead in the 18th minute, with Championship young player of the season Jordan James equalising from the penalty spot 52 minutes in. Luke Thomas put Leicester ahead two minutes later before Oli McBurnie leveled the game on the 63-minute mark
With two games remaining, 23rd-placed Leicester cannot catch Blackburn Rovers in 21st or Charlton Athletic, who have a game in hand, in 20th. However, official confirmation of Leicester’s second consecutive relegation is pending a potential points’ deduction imposed upon West Bromwich Albion.
The Hawthorns side were charged with allegedly breaching the EFL’s financial rules last week and may yet be docked enough points to relegate them, depending on what happens in the remaining fixtures of all of those teams, and 22nd-placed Oxford United, who lost 1-0 to Wrexham on Tuesday. West Brom defeated Watford 3-0 on Tuesday to move up to 18th with 52 points.
Leicester defied 5000/1 odds to win the Premier League title in 2015-16 but, exactly a decade on, have been relegated from the Championship after being hit with a six-point deduction in February for breaching the EFL’s financial rules.
Leicester were first relegated from the top flight in 2022-23 but bounced straight back under Enzo Maresca in the following season. Maresca left for Chelsea after promotion, while Leicester immediately returned to the second tier after finishing 18th in the Premier League, 17 points adrift of safety.
Jamie Vardy inspired Leicester to the 2015-16 Premier League title under Claudio Ranieri (Shaun Botterill / Getty Images)
Any hope they might have quickly escaped the Championship again was dampened by the beginning of winter, however, with Leicester winning just three of their first 14 second-tier matches.
Head coach Marti Cifuentes was sacked in January and replaced by Gary Rowett but the former Millwall and Oxford United boss was unable to inspire a turnaround following their points deduction.
Leicester will join Sheffield Wednesday in League One next term, with the Hillsborough club relegated in February.
Leicester’s past success tarnished by astonishing decline
When Leicester slipped out of the Premier League last season with a whimper, supporters may have been forgiven for thinking that debacle of a season could not be topped.
They were wrong.
This season has to be officially the worst in the club’s history as they head into League One, for only the second time, with two games still to go. As things stand, they would have gone down even without the six-point deduction they were given for breaches of profitability and sustainability rules during the 2023-24 season, when they won the Championship.
In shocking echoes of the 2022-23 campaign, when they were relegated having previously finished in the top eight of the Premier League for three consecutive seasons, and with the seventh-highest budget in the division, the club didn’t see the trapdoor looming.
Leicester were relegated last season after just a year back in the top flight (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Again, they had one of the highest budgets in the league, with parachute payments, and a squad that contained internationals and players with Premier League experience, but underperformed once more in spectacular fashion.
The relationship between the fans and the players, and the club, has become toxic almost beyond belief. The fans have made their feelings known towards the ownership and the club’s leadership.
The incredible success Leicester have enjoyed, especially ten years ago when they were champions of England for the first time, can never be taken away, but those successes have now been tarnished by the astonishing decline of the club.
There has to be, and will be, huge changes over the summer. This habitually underperforming squad will be broken up and a huge rebuild will take place against the backdrop of financial cuts across the board.
But that might not be enough to repair the damage that has been done.
