Thai owner of Leicester City has the common touch

The Thai owners of Premier League champions Leicester City aim to keep the victorious squad together despite expectations that many players will be lured away by lucrative offers from richer clubs.

The vice-chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, son of club chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, attended Monday’s game between Chelsea and Tottenham which ended in a draw, meaning Leicester cannot be overtaken for the title.

Aiyawatt, speaking on Thai television, said: “We are not selling anyone. We are not a team who produces players to be developed later by other teams.”

Aiyawatt added: “All players want to stay and keep on fighting together to see how far they can go. So selling players is not on our agenda.”

Leading Foxes players such as midfielders Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kanté, striker Jamie Vardy and goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel are expected to attract big-money offers from rival clubs, but the revenue from competing in the Champions League next season will aid Leicester’s bid to retain them.

Leicester were 5,000-1 outsiders at the start of the English top-flight competition, and Aiyawatt said when his father Vichai, head of the duty free company King Power, invested in the club six years ago, winning the title “was not what we dared to dream”.

“He was already proud of being the owner of an English Premier League team. Now he has owned an English Premier League champion team, he can’t be prouder,” Aiyawatt said of his father, known more simply as Khun Vichai.

“I have to say on his behalf that he has managed the club with his heart and he just hopes to gain a reputation for the country.”

Aiyawatt said that when the trophy is presented to Leicester’s squad at this weekend’s home game, it will be decorated with ribbons of blue and yellow; blue as Leicester’s colour, and yellow as the colour of Thailand’s royal house.

He said there are plans to bring the Leicester City team out to Thailand for a visit during the off-season, even though a similar visit last year resulted in some youth team players involved in a scandal which contributed to the departure of manager Nigel Pearson.

“They are coming to Thailand very, very soon,” Aiyawatt said.

“This is unbelievable. Thai people should be given a lot of credit as all players acknowledge how much support they have been given.”

Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s King Power has a monopoly on retail operations at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports.

His surname, meaning “light of progressive glory” was bestowed by Thailand’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

King Power’s revenues were up on a rising influx of Chinese tourists, its biggest customers.

It also runs three shopping complexes in Bangkok.

An avid polo player, he owns dozens of ponies and sponsors the All Asia Cup.

Vichai boasts a lifetime membership at London’s Ham Polo club, frequented by the British royals, and has a stable of horses and players on retainer in Bangkok.

And now he stands to cash in on one of football’s greatest fairytales.

But the bespectacled Thai tycoon also displays an unerring common touch, dishing out free beer and doughnuts at the stadium, where he lands his helicopter in the centre circle.

Despite his popularity, Vichai remains enigmatic as he rarely gives interviews, preferring to let his son, Aiyawatt — known as “Top” — act as the family front man.

“He’s (Vichai) a successful businessman and he tried to challenge himself to get something done,” Top, Leicester’s vice-chairman, told AFP.

“He said, I think two or three years before, that he wants the team to be a success in the Premier League, and now we are.”

The avuncular Vichai has carefully navigated Thailand’s treacherous political waters of recent years, while taking his King Power empire from strength to strength.

He has built an estimated fortune of $2.9bn (€2.5bn) since establishing King Power in 1989 — starting with a single shop in Bangkok.

With the company name emblazoned across the Leicester shirt and stadium, Vichai is now well placed to leverage football success into global recognition for his brand.

And as Premier League champions, Leicester’s share of next season’s €6.5bn TV deal will be several times more than Vichai first paid for the club.

Leicester supporters quickly warmed to Vichai after he bought the then Championship strugglers for an estimated €50m in 2010.

The devout Buddhist is a firm believer in the power of karma, flying in Thai monks to bless Leicester’s pitch and give their players lucky amulets.

And while pumping tens of millions of pounds into the team, club debt and infrastructure, Vichai has spent judiciously.

“The success of Leicester City, it’s because of Mr Vichai,” said Thai FA chief Somyot Poompanmoung, who has known the billionaire for more than 30 years.

“He takes care, or he looks after his players, or his team, like a father looking after his children. He is very close to the players.”

Vichai rose from relative obscurity, flourishing during the last decade of political upheaval in Thailand, a country where big contracts follow political loyalties.

King Power hit the jackpot in 2006 when it won the duty-free concession at Bangkok’s cavernous new Suvarnabhumi airport, and with it a captive market of tens of millions of travellers.

In 2007, a year after ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, Manchester City’s former owner, was dumped from office in a coup, Vichai saw off legal moves to break his duty-free monopoly.

In a kingdom where connections count, Vichai now firmly belongs to the royalist establishment that turfed out Thaksin. His family received its royal surname in 2013.

“On the political side, any business that could win long-term government concessions in Thailand would not lack for political know-how,” Pavida Pananond, an academic at Thammasat University’s Business School in Bangkok told AFP.

“The fact that Khun Vichai is often seen with celebrities and royalties, Thai and international, confirms that his contacts list is hard to match,” she said.