Media Coverage

[Guest Kopfkino]

Terrible thread title (please change if can come up with anything better) but often in these situations I like to read a lot of the media commentary so I thought I'd create a thread to collate stuff if people want to read it all. There's some great writing already out there, so moving to read. Post any good articles you find

 

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It's English football's greatest miracle and Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha made it possible... the man in the helicopter

By: Martin Samuel

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-6326845/MARTIN-SAMUEL-Vichai-Srivaddhanaprabha-Leicesters-miracle-man.html

 

It was one of the most evocative, yet strangely incongruous, sights in football. The bright blue helicopter, landing in the centre circle. It told of money, of power, of what the game in England had become.

 

The spectacle would begin normally. The final whistle blew, the match finished and, first, Leicester's ground staff would enter the field with their mowers. The stadium had emptied by then, save the odd media presence and revellers in the executive boxes, as a dozen of them marched up and down, making the surface ready for the next game.

 

Then a signal would be given and they would move aside, standing patiently along the bylines at each end, waiting. And you would hear it, somewhere in the blackness, the unmistakable whirr of approaching machinery. It always sounded strangely ominous, alien, like an echo of Close Encounters; the way the visitors' spacecraft set off electrical equipment and made rail signals sing.

 

Lights would appear in the dark sky, loose paper and other light debris would start to blow. And it would be here. Maybe it was just the foreignness of it all that was so captivating. A flying machine landing in the heart of a football stadium. It took up the centre circle, but seemed much bigger, the way a dragonfly might in a summerhouse.

 

And that's all it was, really. Just a very rich guy, taking the shortest route home.

 

Travel by helicopters, by light aircraft, has grown much more commonplace as football's wealth has increased. Yet here was the most tangible symbol of what the Premier League had become, and where it was going. Owners from Thailand, resident in Berkshire, landing their helicopter on the pitch at their East Midlands football club.

 

This was a 21st-century image, a 21st-century journey, a 21st-century club.

And out they would come, across the pitch. Leicester's wealthy custodians.

 

Often carrying light luggage, not suitcases, but boxes, probably paperwork, maybe gifts — on one occasion what looked like the Premier League trophy, or certainly its replica. And then the rotor blades would spin — an unmistakable, unnerving noise, again — and the wind would kick up and the giant machine would lift and hover for a second or two, as helicopters always do disconcertingly, and then up and away, over the stadium roof and south, to home.

 

It was not the easiest take-off or landing, said those familiar with flight. The stadium walls made for wicked cross-winds and swells and it took a very skilled pilot to get the family in and out safely, each week.

 

Except on Saturday, when that did not happen; when on the way to Luton Airport to meet a private plane to Thailand, there was a technical failure, a rapid descent and an explosion near car park E which claimed the lives of all on board. From here, can anything ever be the same again at Leicester?

 

The full extent of the tragedy was still emerging on Sunday, but what is now known is that five are dead and one of them is Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, Leicester's owner and, as such, the man who made English football's greatest miracle happen.

 

It is not just his own family who will feel bereaved by this terrible accident. The sorrow in the streets around Leicester on Saturday as news of the tragedy broke, the flowers that have since overwhelmed the space between gates 54 and 57 at the stadium, spoke for what Srivaddhanaprabha has done for the city, and its community.

 

They are not Ly-sess-ta any more, because of him. Nobody wonders where Leicester is on a map. Their sporting triumph, becoming the English league's most surprising winners in 2016, captured imaginations worldwide and brought visitors from across the globe just to be there on the day the trophy was presented. The magic will endure even with such a tragic conclusion.

 

 

Leicester will remain the byword for the impossible dreams held by fans of any small club; it will stay an inspiration through decades, maybe centuries. And he made it possible. The man in the helicopter. His landing in Leicester was the greatest thing that happened to the city; and for those lucky enough to watch it unfold, probably the greatest thing to happen to English football too.

 

Yet his influence spread wider. Srivaddhanaprabha was a resident of the Home Counties, a 100-acre site in Berkshire home to 80 polo ponies, but he embraced Leicester, the city, as well as Leicester City, the club.

 

He donated £2million to the building of a new children's hospital, £100,000 to the fund to rebury Richard III. He gave £23,000 to a Leicester supporter who was raising money for research into MECP2 duplication syndrome, his son's rare genetic disorder, affecting neurodevelopment.

 

His generosity was maverick: 60 free season tickets to mark his 60th birthday, cake and free beers for the whole stadium on special occasions. He would treat the players to lavish dinners, gave them a fleet of sporty BMWs when they won the league, a £10,000 chip each to gamble at a private club on winning promotion.

 

Srivaddhanaprabha was a name bestowed on Vichai by King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, in recognition of his business work and charitable deeds. It means 'light of progressive glory' — and that is what Khun Vichai, as he was known in Thailand, has been to his football club.

 

When, in a battle against relegation, the fans responded positively and noisily to having 30,000 free cardboard clappers placed on every seat, Srivaddhanaprabha ensured it was done for every home game, at a cost of £12,000 each time.

 

The expense, for a year's supply, grew to £280,000, but it gave the King Power Stadium a unique energy and feel. It takes a special owner to note the importance of such minor details, to recognise the club's culture as equal to his own. So, yes, Buddhist monks would perform blessings and the victory parade after Leicester's title win saw banners of Thailand's king being given equal billing to the trophy, but Leicester remained the Foxes, stayed blue, ran out to the Post Horn Gallop as they had always done. They were resolutely Leicester, and rooted, no matter the heights to which Srivaddhanaprabha's largesse took them.

 

This — and the miracle of 2015-16, of course — is why the supporters were so protective of Khun Vichai, even when his decisions were controversial.

 

Football supporters and well-wishers gathered at Leicester's King Power Stadium on Sunday

Dismissing Claudio Ranieri, the manager in that epic title-winning season, less than 12 months after it had been achieved, may be the most polarising call of any owner in the Premier League era. Yet Srivaddhanaprabha's local popularity stayed undiminished.

 

It is too soon to consider Leicester's future. Yet there will be a time when Srivaddhanaprabha's family must address what Leicester means to them, and whether the association is to continue as before. Son Aiyawatt, known as Top, is the vice-chairman and could take the club on, in his father's name.

Equally, there will be pain, an unavoidable emotional imprint around what happened at the King Power Stadium on October 27, 2018, and the terrible personal cost. Can the family set that heartbreak aside, and carry on?

 

At the end of last season, Khun Vichai wrote of 'the unique spirit of togetherness that defines this club'. Leicester will need this more than ever in the months ahead, as they come to terms with what was lost in that fateful, final flight. 

 

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Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was the quiet man with the huge heart who made Leicester believe

By: John Percy

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/10/28/vichai-srivaddhanaprabha-quiet-man-huge-heart-made-leicester/

 

Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha will live on forever in the hearts of a city he taught to dream.

 

He was a self-made billionaire, one of the richest men in Thailand, but still totally in touch with the traditions and history of Leicester City after completing his £39m takeover in August 2010.

His determination to push the club forward and keep progressing was admirable and even though he rarely spoke publicly, he possessed an aura which was felt all around the King Power Stadium whenever he visited. 

 

The Thai tycoon never engaged with the UK media beyond mere pleasantries, preferring to let his actions speak for him - whether it was formulating plans for a new ultra-modern £100m training ground, donating £2m to a local hospital or providing fans with free beer before games.

 

There were never any grumbles from the press over the lack of access [even after winning the title in 2016], merely an unspoken understanding that this private, humble man did not want to be plastered all over the sports pages.

 

In 2014 he did undertake one interview back in Thailand, insisting the ambition was to break into the Premier League’s top five and bring European football to Leicester within three years.

 

It sounded a familiar tale of hyperbole and over-exuberance, but 5,000-1 shots Leicester lifted the title two years later under Claudio Ranieri. It is arguably the biggest shock in football’s history, certainly since it was rebranded in 1992.

 

The memories of that glorious period remain vivid. Ranieri stood next to Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli for ‘Nessun Dorma’ before the Everton game when they lifted the trophy.

Those stirring European nights when Leicester performed admirably in beautiful cities including Bruges, Copenhagen and Seville. This was Srivaddhanaprabha’s dream becoming a reality.

 

Saturday night’s events will also be difficult to shift from the memories of the people who witnessed it.

 

I was there, along with hundreds of other stunned onlookers, watching the fireball behind the stand and the smoke billowing into the night sky. The scorching heat from the helicopter blaze. The noise of the emergency services racing to the scene. The cries and anguish of supporters, office staff and Leicester players. The chaos and confusion.

 

It was one of those dreadful nights when the severity of the situation became worse as time ticked away. There was also the sinister, dark world of social media, with numerous inaccurate statements and certain individuals even making sick jokes about the nightmarish events unfolding on live television.

 

It was not what anyone envisaged before and after what transpired to be a forgettable 1-1 draw with West Ham United. 

 

Talking points after the final whistle such as Claude Puel’s future as manager and Jamie Vardy being dropped to the bench became instantly irrelevant, paling into insignificance as a tragedy unfolded.

True perspective only came with the dreadful news which followed just before 9pm. 

 

He will be fondly remembered as one of the Premier League’s most respected chairmen and leaves a legacy which has transformed Leicester on and off the field. 

 

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Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha: the quiet man behind a sporting fairytale

By: Stuart James

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/oct/28/vichai-srivaddhanaprabha-quiet-man-delivered-dream

 

It is almost eight years to the day since the Football League confirmed that Leicester City’s takeover by a Thailand‑based consortium had been approved. Milan Mandaric, the club’s previous owner, who stayed on as chairman initially, announced: “Today is a great day for Leicester City. Our owners are fantastic people with incredible ambition for the future. They have great character and integrity and they will strive for success for Leicester City.”

 

Few could have imagined how prophetic those words would turn out to be as Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, a Thai billionaire, bought Leicester for £39m and oversaw a magical story of sporting triumph against the odds that rejuvenated a city, never mind a football club, and captured the imagination of people all over the world.

 

That is Vichai’s legacy and will live on in the hearts and minds of the staff, players and supporters at a football club numb with pain and still trying to digest the tragic chain of events at around 8.20pm on Saturday, when a helicopter carrying Leicester’s owner and four other people crashed outside the stadium.

 

Little more than an hour earlier Vichai had been doing one of the things he enjoyed most: watching Leicester play. The 60‑year‑old was never one to say much publicly but actions spoke louder than words from a benefactor who invested heavily in Leicester and regularly attended matches, often flanked in the directors’ box by his son, Aiyawatt, the club’s vice-chairman.

 

A humble and modest man, Vichai left the day-to-day running of the club in the hands of others, notably Susan Whelan, the chief executive, and Jon Rudkin, the director of football, both of whom had his complete trust and would consult with him and Aiyawatt over key decisions.

 

Occasionally Vichai was required to resolve an issue himself and it is a measure of how highly he was regarded that in those circumstances everything tended to get sorted out with the minimum of fuss. Jamie Vardy’s new contract in the title‑winning season was a case in point. Vichai asked Vardy to see him at his private function room at the stadium – where Vardy had never before set foot – after negotiations between the player’s agent and the club had reached an impasse. The striker accepted the club’s financial position, listened to how much Vichai thought of him and walked out of their meeting more than happy to put pen to paper.

 

Vichai had that sort of effect on people and his close relationship with a number of the Leicester players – Vardy even invited him to his wedding – made him much more than a football club owner to them. He would take the squad on an all-expenses-paid night out from time to time and his generosity – something that near enough everyone who has spent time in Vichai’s company talks about – was always appreciated.

 

The kind gestures, whether donating millions of pounds to local charities, handing out 60 free season tickets to fans to mark his 60th birthday or giving every Leicester player a BMW after winning the Premier League title, were never made with publicity in mind.

 

Vichai preferred to stay out of the limelight and was a private man. Even when Leicester’s title‑winning fairytale was unfolding and everyone wanted a piece of the club, he stayed quiet. Yet behind the public silence was a deep love for Leicester and a relentless determination to drive the club on, whether through breaking transfer records for players or pledging £100m towards the cost of a new state-of-the-art training ground.

 

Any interviews with the media were generally left to Aiyawatt, the notable exception being a rare press conference in May 2014, when Leicester had just won promotion from the Championship. Speaking to reporters in Bangkok, Vichai said he wanted a top-five finish in the Premier League within three years and that he was willing to spend £180m to get there.

 

It was bullish talk and, on the face of it, easy to dismiss as unrealistic, especially as Leicester had been out of the top flight for a decade. Yet just under two years after making those comments, Vichai and his son were at Stamford Bridge watching Chelsea hold Tottenham Hotspur to the 2-2 draw that saw Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester side crowned Premier League champions.

 

The party was going on elsewhere, at Vardy’s house in Melton Mowbray, but Vichai and his family would get to enjoy a special moment of their own five days later, when Leicester were presented with the Premier League trophy after the home fixture against Everton.

 

It was notable at the time that Vichai was the prominent figure on the cover of the souvenir programme that day and a few eyebrows were also raised after the game, when the owner and his son seemed to be permanently attached to the Premier League trophy during a lap of honour. Maybe, though, that was nothing more than their immense pride shining through – and quite frankly, who can blame them?

 

Those images will be shown over and again in the days to come and, with one eye on the future, Vichai’s words on that May afternoon are also worth revisiting after a truly awful weekend.

“Our spirit exists because of the love we share for each other and the energy it helps to create, both on and off the pitch,” he wrote. “And in the years to come it will continue to be our greatest asset.”

 

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It felt like a Leicester City match day – except for the silence

By: Henry Winter

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/it-felt-like-a-leicester-city-match-day-except-for-the-silence-w0cdwhs8k

 

A river of grief flowed towards the King Power yesterday, starting early on the coldest of days, swelling and continuing late into the dark night. Thousands of Leicester City fans arrived, numbed, stunned, bereft.

 

A torrent of tributes in blue washed up against the concrete walls of the stadium as a club, a city and a sport paid an emotional tribute to those who perished in the helicopter crash on Saturday night, including Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, Leicester’s beloved benefactor.

 

Vichai gave Leicester their greatest moment, the against-all-odds 2015-16 Premier League title triumph. And now the club have been engulfed in tragedy. On a day chilly enough to make distressed fans shiver even more, they came from all avenues, some walking from the city centre, others driving as close as they could before the traffic slowed to a trickle, and then parking, some double-parking, and walking.

 

It felt like match day except for the near silence broken only by a few whispered words and the constant rustle of cellophane wrappers containing countless flowers. They walked along Aylestone Road, passed the police car up on the kerb, guarding the taped-off gaps in the railings. Even the entrance to view the Roman earthworks was cordoned off.

 

Behind it were the trees and then the corner of the car park where Vichai, two members of his staff, Nursara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare, and the pilots, Eric Swaffer and Izabela Lechowicz, lost their lives when their helicopter fell to earth an hour after Saturday’s Premier League game with West Ham United.

 

Quickening their step as the stadium came into view, the fans skirted around two more police cars on the kerb. Some of those on this heart-rending pilgrimage wore their replica shirts. One pulled on the “Fearless” T-shirt, which sold in its thousands as Jamie Vardy and the team assembled with Vichai’s largesse enacted their Premier League mission impossible. Vichai loved the Foxes imagery and the fearless motif.

 

As they hurried down Raw Dykes Road to the ground, parents tenderly held the hands of children who themselves clutched flowers. They passed Filbert Way, a nod to their past, a route closed off by the police. In the distance, vehicles from the air accident investigation branch were stationed. Given how crowded the area can be, even an hour after the final whistle, it was a miracle that nobody on the ground was killed.

 

They hurried on, drawn towards the spreading tapestry of cloth and carnations. One fan stopped in a spot yards from the tributes, a position of particular personal emotion. It was where he had stood on May 2, 2016 and absorbed the joyous scenes when second-placed Tottenham Hotspur slipped up at Chelsea, a party raged in Vardy’s kitchen and fans descended on the King Power to celebrate the 5,000-1 upset.

 

The Leicester fan spoke only to the street pastor, Russell Bentley, who had been asked by the club and the council to provide succour to those overwhelmed by woe. Bentley talked to that man almost frozen to the spot. “He was so emotional,” he said. “He’d heard what had happened, but he couldn’t take it in. He needed to be here. It was such a shock that he wanted to be in the spot where he was celebrating two years ago. He can’t believe he is down here today.”

 

Nobody could. Nobody really spoke, certainly not in the volume usually associated with a crowd milling around a ground. This was a club in mourning, a city in disbelief, a county reeling and also a sport in shock.

 

Tributes came from clubs far and wide, from Chelsea to Roma and beyond. It was more than the messages of support from clubs’ social media sites. Sympathy was expressed by fans of other clubs who simply turned up at the King Power and left messages of condolence. In among the ocean of Leicester blue could be seen a red Liverpool shirt, and a scarf with the scribbled exhortation to those now grieving that “You’ll never walk alone”. There were shirts from West Ham, Walsall and Leicester Tigers. Somebody tied a Celtic scarf on the supporting strut of the stadium.

 

“Divided by colours, united by grief” read the missive on a Wolves shirt. Nottingham Forest and Coventry City fans left tributes. “The people we have spoken to today, there are people from different clubs coming down here,” Bentley said. “Now there is the rivalry but under the umbrella of football is a family, and that’s what this is all about today.”

 

 

Another reason underpins the outpouring of emotion from other clubs, whether local or distant, rival or otherwise. Vichai was respected because he made dreams come true, because he clearly loved football, and travelled thousands of miles from Bangkok to watch his team play when he could easily have tuned in from the comfort of his own home.

 

The man who bought Leicester for £39 million in 2010 was how owners should be: clearing the debts, daring to dream, understanding the importance of community, dignified in defeat and generous in victory. He rewarded the players with blue BMWs for their title win. He cared for them as people as well as professionals.

 

The dressing-room was numb. “A truly great, kind, loving man who will be missed so much by everyone,” Harry Maguire tweeted. “Absolutely heartbroken and devastated,” Wes Morgan, the club captain, wrote on social media, adding that Vichai was “loved and adored by everyone” at the club. “You are legend,” Vardy tweeted, “an incredible man who had the biggest heart, the soul of Leicester City Football Club.”

 

Vichai invested emotionally and financially in Leicester City. He made the stadium classier, cleaner, making match day more of a welcoming experience. Fans adored him and he loved them. A mural of Vichai graces the side of Newarke Houses Museum.

 

 

 

Vichai celebrated his birthday by giving all the fans a cupcake. Sometimes there were free beers for supporters. Most importantly, he gave them the title. Bentley is still taking in the Premier League glory.

 

“It was beyond Leicester City’s wildest dreams to do what they’ve done in the past few years, to bring a club out of receivership, round to this and not only that, but put money into the club, not take it out of the club, and making himself so loved in this city for everything else he has done for the city as well as the football club,” Bentley said.

 

Vichai donated £2 million to develop a children’s hospital at the Royal Infirmary and gave £1 million to the University of Leicester. He cared for the city as well as the club.

 

“He was such a humble chap, he’s worked wonders here, and you see the respect shown to him with all the sea of flowers, and so many people coming down here all day is just incredible,” Bentley said.

 

Too many owners are in it for the ego ride or the broadcasting gold rush. Vichai wasn’t. Too many clubs have slipped away from their heartbeat, their fans. Leicester haven’t. Vichai was key to that, setting a tone of unity and community. Leicester City were, of course, a useful, global vehicle to promote his King Power duty-free brand, but he really saw them as a family.

 

Bentley spoke for all supporters when he said that Vichai was the best of owners. “I might be a little bit prejudiced because I’m a Leicester boy and a Leicester supporter,” the street pastor said. “But people see what he did here as something quite special. I don’t think any other club has got it.”

 

As Bentley talked, fans kept walking up. A few hushed words could be heard between fans leaving their tributes and reading the messages. The Carabao Cup fourth-round tie on Tuesday against Southampton would surely be off? Some asked. The club confirmed that it would be postponed in a statement released late last night. Most fans just stood there, shaking their heads in anguish.

 

They gazed at programmes with Vichai on the cover, one against Leeds United, another against Everton. If only they could turn back the pages of time.

 

One fan carefully laid down a child’s Leicester shirt, spread the arms and then draped a scarf around the neck. Everything was very neat, with each new wave of supporters wanting to make sure their tribute did not obscure another’s.

 

 

 

Everywhere, fans were leaving messages of gratitude for Vichai’s role in their title victory. “You will live on for ever in the hearts of a city you taught to dream,” read one tribute. It was wrapped in a Leicester “Premier League champions” scarf. “God bless you and your family Vichai and grateful to you for all you have done for our club — Respect,” was written on a white Leicester City leisure shirt. Such was the need for more space to the shrine that stewards moved the barriers 20 yards as the flow of fans showed no sign of abating. Hanging from one of the barriers as it was carried across was a Leicester shirt adorned with messages, including, “Thanks for the best years as a Leicester fan”.

 

Another fan stepped in to leave a scarf celebrating the Champions League round-of-16 tie against Seville. This, too, was Vichai’s legacy, the memory of the Blue Army in Europe, in the elite division, at the top table. Epic trips to Bruges, Porto and Copenhagen in the group stage and then, another chapter in the fairytale, reaching the knockout stage and that incredible evening when they defeated Seville at home to reach the quarter-finals. Mighty Atletico Madrid edged them out but pride remained intact. “Leicester On Tour” read one well-travelled scarf.

 

“Thanks for the memories,” read another message. “Foxes never quit.” And that will be one of the themes of the coming days. In Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, known as Top, Leicester have a man with a similar passion for the club as his father’s. As the club emphasised last night, “Leicester City was a family under his leadership. It is as a family that we will grieve his passing and maintain the pursuit of a vision for the Club that is now his legacy”. Foxes never quit.

 

The power and commitment of the fans, as demonstrated yesterday, provides further light amid the gloom. The shrine showed that. In among the shirts, scarves and flowers were candles, a large painting of a fox, even a pair of trainers. A drum was in the middle, bearing the message “a massive thank you for all you have done for all of us at LCFC”.

 

That gratitude is shared by staff as well as fans. Some of those working at King Power yesterday emerged to see this growing carpet of love for Vichai. There were hugs with supporters they knew, their distress inescapable. Vichai was known as a popular owner, kind to staff, always with a smile and word.

 

Some of the radio reporters, fans of the club, friends of many within the building, familiar with the owner, looked drained as they gripped their microphones and professionally, calmly relayed details.

And all the while, throughout their broadcasts and beyond, the fans kept arriving. Sunday league sides stopped by, grown men still in their strips, gazing at the ever-expanding field of flowers. They shuffled to one side to allow two young women, clearly distraught, to approach and lay a bouquet of roses. Boys from the Stoneygate Lions, still in their kit, put their phones away after taking pictures and just stood there, trying to take in the immensity of what had befallen the club they love.

 

A reminder of Vichai’s popularity in his homeland came with another young group of visitors. Members of the Fox Hunt football academy in Chaiyaphum, in Thailand, were in the country, all sporting tracksuits with King Power’s name on them. They lined up in front of the tributes, and fell to their knees, paying their respects.

 

Leicester handled this torrent of misery as adroitly as they could. Clubs reveal their true nature in tragedies like this and there was so much class in the way that the stewards patiently guided young boys skilfully through the tributes and helped them tie scarves on the stanchions.

 

One scarf was from the Worthington Cup final of 2000, Matt Elliott’s day of magnificent marksmanship that saw off Tranmere Rovers at Wembley. Yards away, through the window of the closed Foxes Fans Store, two young supporters watched footage on a big screen of Elliott scoring. It segued into images of Vardy volleying home in that unforgettable title season. When the film paused before resuming its loop, the boys turned away, and returned to the muffled hordes.

 

 

As the afternoon wore on, and the numbers rose even more, a mother filmed her son placing his scarf among the tributes. A family left a note: “We’ve been numb with sadness all night”.

A woman stepped in among the tributes to retrieve a discarded plastic bottle that had been blown there. It was a question of respect. Vichai was that revered. “This is just awful to lose him this way,” Bentley said. “It will be hard to get over.” In front of the pastor, Leicester’s river of tears flowed on and on.

 

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Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha instilled passion in his father Vichai for Leicester City revolution

By: Steve Madeley

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/top-srivaddhanaprabha-instilled-passion-in-his-father-for-leicester-city-revolution-p9lccqcm0

 

 

Throughout the most glorious period in Leicester City’s history, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha has been the public face of the family behind their success.

 

While Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was the ultimate decision-maker behind the club’s Premier League title and run to the Champions League quarter-finals, his son was the figure front and centre of Leicester’s Thai revolution.

 

The young businessman affectionately known as “Top” is the English-speaking, football-supporting adviser to the man at the helm; the hands-on family member taking an active role in delivering success the like of which Leicester supporters could barely have imagined.

 

A quirk of fate placed Top at home in Thailand when tragedy sent his father’s helicopter spinning to the ground on the perimeter of the King Power Stadium on Saturday.

 

At most home games he would have been at his father’s side, analysing the 1-1 draw with West Ham United, assessing the performance of Claude Puel and his players and, perhaps, discussing the Frenchman’s decision to leave out Jamie Vardy.

 

Instead he found himself awoken early yesterday morning in Bangkok to news that will leave his family numb. The subsequent news of his death has brought an end to a hugely successful business double act.

 

If the pain of the weekend’s events does not drive Top away from football, he should have no problems with the practicalities of taking charge.

 

This is, after all, a young man with directorships in dozens of King Power’s business interests and who is credited with building strong relationships with the Leicester City staff.

 

“It’s the Thai culture,” he said in a 2016 interview. “We give our time to the staff, the players and to the manager. We try to manage it like a family, to listen to the problems of every single member of staff.”

 

Such is his own bond with the East Midlands community that he received an honorary doctorate from De Montfort University.

 

Last night he was en route to Leicester once more; a familiar journey made so often in joy but this time made necessary by a horrid turn of events.

 

He can never have imagined such pain would come from the Srivaddhanaprabhas’ expensive hobby; a project that was meant to be a sporting distraction from their duty-free business empire and an investment that led to the most incredible success story in Premier League history.

 

In his early 30s, Top was the man with the vision to turn Leicester into a Premier League force but he cannot have envisaged the dramatic triumph that would arrive in 2016 when, just a year after an incredible end-of-season run saved them from relegation, Leicester defied pre-season odds of 5,000-1 to win the Premier League, finishing ten points clear of second-placed Arsenal.

 

The remarkable success of Claudio Ranieri and his team put Top’s plans to develop the club years ahead of schedule yet he continued to plot infrastructure improvements that would establish the team among the elite clubs in the country.

 

A new training ground is in the pipeline, as is a stadium expansion, while the decision to stick with Puel as manager despite reservations among supporters and some players hinted at a medium-term vision to move on from the headline-grabbing events of 2016 and the subsequent European adventure, ended by Atletico Madrid in the last eight.

 

All are judgments of a young man who fuelled his father’s passion for a football club in the East Midlands and created history in the unlikeliest of places.

 

Edited 29 October 2018 by Guest

[ozleicester]

Has been the 2nd or 3rd story on Aussie news yesterday...amazing.

[TheUltimateWinner]

Some of the media have conducted themselves in such honour, people like Ian Stringer and Geoff Peters who have given fantastic accounts of what a tremendous man Vichai was. I'm proud of how these two have especially represented the Leicester family.

 

However, I am still disgusted at the BBC World News for suggesting Puel was onboard (causing many people who were already distressed even more distress) and also now hearing Sky have played a video of the pilot (god rest his soul) flying the helciopter with Taylor Swift Trouble playing over the top. 

Edited 29 October 2018 by TheUltimateWinner

[foxfanazer]

12 minutes ago, TheUltimateWinner said:

Some of the media have conducted themselves in such honour, people like Ian Stringer and Geoff Peters who have given fantastic accounts of what a tremendous man Vichai was. I'm proud of how these two have especially represented the Leicester family.

 

However, I am still disgusted at the BBC World News for suggesting Puel was onboard (causing many people who were already distressed even more distress) and also now hearing Sky have played a video of the pilot (god rest his soul) flying the helciopter with Taylor Swift Trouble playing over the top. 

Was gonna say exactly the same thing about the BBC. Should be severely reprimanded for that

[fox766]

Was at the ground earlier and seen the team come out right in front of me. My only niggle is some of tv crews were quite disrespectful one barged a young woman out the way and another popped a balloon just becsuse it kept getting in his shot.

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

Adrian Durham did a really tasteful tribute on TalkSport earlier, highlighting all his community work and donations, and his charities and foundations in Leicester and Thailand

[davieG]

Some media outlets reported the Leicester City helicopter crash like it was a transfer story – and that is inexcusable
Is the public’s thirst for details of death so unquenchable that a little patience and accuracy are forgotten?

Sam Cunningham

Monday October 29th 2018
  

Place yourself, for a moment, in the head of a close family member, distant relative or friend of Claude Puel, the Leicester City manager. It is Saturday evening. You have been out with friends for dinner, or are watching a film curled up on the sofa. You have, by now, started to hear the concerning news that the helicopter belonging to Leicester owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha took off from the centre of the King Power Stadium pitch, as it does every home game, and just as it flew above the stands, span out of control and plummeted into the car park, bursting into flames and killing all those inside. 

At 11.30pm, roughly three hours after the crash, the BBC, on its 24-hour rolling news channel BBC News, was reporting that Leicester’s manager might have been on board. “If it’s confirmed that the chairman and I now understand reports the manager might have been on board what does that suggest for the future of the club?” a news anchor in the studio asked the on-scene reporter.

Claude Puel was not dead

 

A 14-second clip was cut of the video and uploaded on social media, which was viewed more than half-a-million times within 12 hours. It was a spark which spread the news through the internet like wildfire. People were discussing how tragic it was. Others said how irresponsible it was if this was not true. 

But Puel wasn’t on board. Puel was fine. It wasn’t true.

On Sunday morning, Nice-Matin, a French regional daily newspaper, confirmed that, despite the BBC’s speculation, Puel was alive. Later that day, Puel spoke to Radio France. “It’s a tragedy for the club,” he said. “I think very strongly about the victims and their families, and I wanted to reassure everyone who cares about me, I’m terribly sad but I’m fine.”

Is the public’s thirst for details of death so unquenchable and the media — and by this I include traditional and social — so obsessed with breaking the names of the dead that a little patience and accuracy are forgotten?

 

Speculative language
What kind of language is “understand” and “might” for reporting on the possibility of somebody meeting their death in a ball of flames? That sort of language is OK for an inconsequential transfer story, but somebody’s death? They’re either alive or dead.

Are we really so obsessed with breaking the story of someone’s tragic death that a touch of careful consideration becomes irrelevant?

“It was a complex, fast-moving situation and conflicting reports were coming in,” a BBC spokesman told me. “We were clear when information had been confirmed — and when it hadn’t.” 

Which begs the question, why were they reporting information about people’s deaths which they had not confirmed? When Britain’s public broadcaster, funded by the public and not as reliant on clicks as the rest, is so desperate for attention, what hope is there for anyone else?

 

Gary Lineker’s professionalism
On the one hand, there was Gary Lineker, the former Leicester striker, carefully navigating a challenging news story about his beloved club while presenting Match of the Day, on air while the events unfolded, a show he described as “the most difficult” he ever hosted, on the other a professional news anchor wildly and irresponsibly speculating. 

Apple News is the only major news aggregation app to use humans as editors rather than machine algorithms, and its editor in chief Lauren Kern, a prominent American journalist, prioritises accuracy ahead of speed. They now have 90 million regular readers, which she puts down to trust gained from human curation, allowing it to keep out fake news and inaccurate stories or posts from traditionally trustworthy sources. 

Her team often find that information reported either directly on social media or through media outlets soon after a major story breaks tends to be wrong, but spreads like a virus through Twitter, Facebook and Google nonetheless.

 

A little patience

Later on Sunday, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s daughter, Voramas, was next to be pronounced dead. Only, she wasn’t dead, either. She was as fine as one could be after discovering their 60-year-old father has been killed. 

The story of her death spread everywhere. So new stories had to be written on news websites with headlines indicating she was, in fact, not dead. In places, the “not” was written in caps, just to be clear that although they had said she was dead, she was actually NOT dead.

Are the clicks and the viewing figures worth it? Are the numbers and statistics more important than human feeling and emotion? Death has no patience with its victims — the least we could do is have a little on their behalf.

https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/claude-puel-leicester-city-helicopter-crash-vichai-srivaddhanaprabha/

 

[Nalis]

Good article above, the way it was reported in parts was like a transfer, doesnt sit well.

 

Having said that, most have been respectful to be fair.

[davieG]

The Washington Post

 

Leicester’s farewell to owner who delivered soccer fairytale

Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, son of Leicester City chairman, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha applauds the fans after the final whistle of the English Premier League soccer match between Leicester City and Burnley at the King Power Stadium, Leicester, England, Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018. (Joe Giddens/PA via AP) (Associated Press)

By Rob Harris | AP

November 10 at 8:39 PM

LEICESTER, England — The soundtrack to Leicester’s sporting fairytale now carries a mournful melody.

On the streets where improbable success was toasted two years ago, the “Champions of England” chant reverberated again on Saturday, this time as the chorus for thousands of fans marching with players to the scene of unthinkable tragedy.

A melancholic lyric has been added to honor the owner who made one of the greatest sporting underdog successes possible: “Champions of England. You made us sing that.” It is why Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha will always be held in deep regard by the people of Leicester, where soccer returned for the first time since the Thai entrepreneur’s death.

“The Boss” was the simple message on many T-shirts as up to 20,000 people embarked on a mile-long walk to the stadium where two weeks ago the 60-year-old Vichai died when his helicopter spiraled out of control shortly after taking off from the center circle.

It is the field where Vichai lifted the English Premier League trophy in May 2016, the culmination of an incredible journey taking an unglamorous team from the second tier to the pinnacle of English soccer. That was the day when tears of joy followed as tenor Andrea Bocelli serenaded manager Claudio Ranieri.

“Time to Say Goodbye” carried a new sorrowful significance on Saturday when a recording of Bocelli was played in King Power Stadium after Saturday’s 0-0 draw against Burnley. Vichai’s son, vice chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, led the players around the field to thank fans who held aloft white scarves emblazoned with “Forever in our hearts.” Clutching a Thai flag, Aiyawatt was embraced by goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel at the end of a lap of appreciation as the team and supporters applauded.

Watching on, Ranieri looked close to tears on his return to Leicester. The Italian, whose reign ended nine months after the 5,000-1 longshot’s title win, returned to mourn the late chairman along with his predecessor and successor as manager.

“His love and his passion helped us to achieve something amazing,” Ranieri said. “Something that will be remembered forever.”

The billionaire bought the struggling club in 2010 while in the second tier. In an era of mega-rich super clubs winning the English top-flight seemed unattainable for unfashionable teams like Leicester. With investment in the squad, but not vast sums, Vichai made the impossible dream possible.

“You don’t support Leicester City to win things. Other people do that with other teams,” fan Glyn Morgans, who has been coming to Leicester games since 1969, said on the 5,000-1 walk named after Leicester’s title odds. “Leicester people support Leicester because they are local people who love their local team.”

Now, though, Leicester is a name that resonates around the world.

“Even when we are on holiday people come up to us and say they are so pleased Leicester did it, a small club like Leicester,” fan Margaret Bennett said as sunshine gave way to a downpour on the march to the stadium that was led by injured players, including defender Harry Maguire.

The hundreds of jerseys and floral tributes that amassed outside the stadium within days of the tragedy have been moved to an open space close to where Vichai’s helicopter crashed in a ball of flames after the Oct. 27 night game against West Ham.

Goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel was still in the stadium an hour after the final whistle when he watched Vichai’s blue aircraft take off as normal from the field, and he waved off the chairman. It was soon spiraling out of control and Schmeichel raced to the fire in a carpark.

“What happened next will stay with me forever,” Schmeichel said in a 100-page matchday magazine dedicated completely to the five victims of the helicopter crash. “It has replayed through my head every minute since, wishing there was something more I could have done. I stood for a long time at the police cordon at the back of the carpark ... tears streaming down my face.”

Schmeichel was among the players who flew briefly to Thailand a week ago to pay respects to Vichai at a Bangkok temple during a weeklong funeral ceremony.

Now the entire club could commemorate Vichai on matchday. The stadium fell silent for five minutes before kickoff as a video tribute to Vichai was played on big screens before chants of “Vichai” broke out. The day carried an additional poignancy as wreaths were also laid and an additional minute’s silence held to mark 100 years since the end of World War I.

“This week has been hard,” Leicester winger Marc Albrighton said. “Leicester fans have been brilliant for us and we need them. It’s going to be a tough road. The lads are emotionally drained. Today was one of the hardest games I have ever played.”

Before the game, club officials including Aiyawatt viewed the area that has become a makeshift memorial to his father a few minutes’ walk from the stadium. The Leicester vice chairman, who is also known as Top, inspected the carpet of flowers that have been formed in front of a picture of Vichai and the word “boss” in blue and white flowers. Of the hundreds of soccer jerseys from Leicester and rival clubs that were placed outside the stadium in the days after the disaster, some now encircle the pitch while others have been placed on railings near the stadium.

Fans who traveled from the northwest city of Burnley added their only tributes and took inspiration from the 2016 success.

“Everyone was a Leicester fan that year,” Burnley fan Roy Addison said. “It showed to a small club anything is possible. Nothing is impossible.”

Grief will, however, forever be associated with the glory here.

Premier League executive chairman Richard Scudamore found a flicker of optimism at a dark moment. Supporters gathering in English streets holding banners of team owners usually signals discontent and protest. In Leicester, they have only affection for Vichai.

“The reaction showed a huge tolerance,” Scudamore said in the days after Vichai’s death. “It’s probably put to bed the idea there are foreign owners and there are English owners, and all the foreigners are bad and all the English owners are good.”

Now Leicester, with Claude Puel as coach, has to look to the future on the field with the team 10th in the 20-team standings.

Although the 32,184 attendance on Saturday was the biggest crowd of the season, the owner’s death two years after the title win seems like the closing of a chapter to some fans.

“Games are a bit weird now we’ve had all that success,” 21-year-old season ticketholder Sam Collins said. “When you win and lose now it doesn’t mean as much anymore because we’ve been to the pinnacle.”

___

More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/apf-Soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Rob Harris is at www.twitter.com/RobHarris and www.facebook.com/RobHarrisReports

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.