How will Top be remembered?

[foxsake]

47 minutes ago, trabuch said:

I can't decide

This is perfect

[ALC Fox]

I think it's quite difficult to fairly judge a guy who was parachuted into multiple areas of responsibility that he just wasn't prepared for at a time when he should have been grieving the tragic loss of his father, while also knowing that any point he could have lost other members of his family or he could have been in that helicopter on any other day.

 

The squad we had at the time, the one that knew and loved both him and Vichai, will have helped him through this process both personally as people he had close relationships with, but also with their performances on the pitch.

 

It is no secret that Top is/was less level headed than Vichai. The sacking/non-sacking of Pearson is proof of that, and testament to Vichai's steady hand as that situation was smoothed over at the time.

 

To expect Top to be as successful as the man who built his company and juggled multiple interests is quite fanciful. I can see why Top would have wanted to do it, but in hindsight I think perhaps he should have appointed somebody else as the club's chairperson in order for him to fully focus on doing justice to King Power, and for someone else to do the same with Leicester City and someone else with OH Leuven.

 

Expecting Top to emulate a man of Vichai's years in terms of wisdom, business nous and experience is unfair, I think.

 

Now, he put all of this on himself, and ultimately he must bear responsibility for how the club has declined under his stewardship with its failure to adapt to changing Profit & Sustainability Rules and how it abandoned the sell-to-buy model to appease Brendan Rodgers, a coach that the club undoubtedly thought would lead us through a sustained period of success, perhaps winning more than the solitary FA Cup that he did, reaching or even winning a Conference League or Europa League final and tasting Champions League football again.

 

All signs currently point towards Top not being able to arrest the slide, with the following issues proof of that:

 

- Veering from one type of manager to the next with no coherent plan, including being linked to vastly different managers in the same recruitment process

- Letting multiple prize assets leave the club for nothing

- Two relegations in three seasons

- Too much loyalty shown to people in high positions who are not performing

- Always operating right on the edge financially, worming our way out of PSR sanctions on technicalities, and risking it all on immediate returns to the Premier League and the chance of staying there

 

There is, quite rightly, a lot of goodwill among our fanbase towards Top for what he was a part of before his father died, how he handled a period of personal heartbreak in the public eye, the way in which he took on responsibility for the club afterwards, and how he continues to support not just the club but the city as well.

 

Also, arguably, we're now really seeing the investment made into Seagrave bear fruit, with multiple young players coming through at the same time who are good enough to play for the first team and possibly help us achieve promotion. And there aren't many better feelings as a fan than watching a young player graduate from the academy and become an important first-team player. These young kids each have the chance to become club legends, or at least engender a lot of goodwill through their big-money sales, giving the club the chance to overcome its current financial woes.

 

I'd be happy for Top to remain the owner of the club. But huge changes are needed whether he sells the club or not. If he stays, we need an overhaul in senior positions. Proper proven performers in a football environment who understand what it takes to build a team and take a club forward. People with their fingers on the pulse and who will rely on proper analysis in the recruitment of managers and players, and who will keep the club on an even keel financially, providing a sense of optimism whatever happens on the pitch.

 

I'd be happy for Top to relinquish his role of chairman, too. I imagine that would be a difficult thing for him to do. But I think he should focus on King Power and come back to the club when he's a bit older, wiser and savvier, and let others take the club to the next level so there is something wonderful for him to come back to in years to come.

[SB87_LCFC]

So many bang on points in this thread, the buck stops with him as the owner, but I do have some thoughts 

 

When Vichai bought the club Top was 24, he was young, perhaps didn't know a great deal and it strikes me that he never had any intention of taking over from his dad, so he just went with the flow and waited to see what was going to come of it - for all we know, Vichai probably wasn't sure what was going to come of the club and how long he would be here for. We also don't know what Top's football knowledge was/is like in terms of players and the game itself. 

 

With his dad gone, he had nobody to guide him, so he has had to go with the people his father trusted, which I feel is where it all went south and he hasn't got the heart now to be cut throat because he's too naïve. I feel a lot of the issues stem from recruitment, we can argue the internal running of the club is a lot to blame and I'm not disagreeing, but the football pitch is a separate entity and if you bring in the right players and the right blend for a manage, it breeds success. 

 

Since COVID are high spend on players has been something of a disaster, 

 

Youri - £45m

Ayoze £30m

Castagne- £17.8m

Vestergaard - 17.6m 

Fofana £33m 

Daka £25m

Soumare £20m

VK, Faes Souttar - £45m 

Skipp - £22m

Bilal - £20m

 

Total - £275m (approx)

 

For a further kick in the nuts,  the ridiculously high wages on players like Bertrand, Ayew, Coady, BDCR and the fact we covered a high % of Edouard's salary from Palace last season. We missed out signing Lookman permanently,  we didn't have the funds to sign Madueke from PSV when we had the chance to for a fairly reasonable price and then only being able to bring in a back up full back in Woyo in January after promising Ruud finances to add to the squad. RVN wasn't capable of keeping us up, but at least if he got his own players in, we may have stood a bit of a chance.

 

In terms of the previous blueprint, we bring a player in, make a massive mark-up and register the profit into good areas, this has gone totally out of the window and nobody seems to know why. Two out of the four highest transfers walked away for sod all, while Chelsea must owe us a bucket load cos they can't get Fofana fit!

 

The only real profit we have made in the last 5 years was on the sales of Barnes and Dewsbury-Hall. Does anyone know if we got compensation for Trey Nyoni when he went to Liverpool? I heard it was something like £10m?

 

I just think Top is out of his depth, been badly advised, by people who are looking at the football club as a business - The same reason Man Utd are in the mud! 

 

 

Edited 14 July 2025 by SB87_LCFC

[Silebyfox_89]

Temu Kim Jong-un

[turtmcfly]

42 minutes ago, SB87_LCFC said:

Since COVID are high spend on players has been something of a disaster, 

 

Youri - £45m

Ayoze £30m

Castagne- £17.8m

Vestergaard - 17.6m 

Fofana £33m 

Daka £25m

Soumare £20m

VK, Faes Souttar - £45m 

Skipp - £22m

Bilal - £20m

 

Total - £275m (approx)

 

 

 

The first two were signed pre-Covid (which serves to strengthen your argument)

 

 

[The Horse's Mouth]

If he was to sell now I’d look at him relatively fondly tbh

[trabuch]

1 hour ago, foxsake said:

This is perfect

Glad you got it. 

[Stadt]

"He didn't want to be in this position" Surely that was the idea all along, Vichai was 52 when he bought the club, the long term plan would have been for Top to takeover as chairman - you'd have thought.

 

If he didn't want to be in this position at all, either sell up or appoint better directors so he barely had to think about the club at all. Stringing out this ownership and running the club into the ground in memorandum of his dad is not any good for anybody.

[Finnegan]

11 minutes ago, Stadt said:

"He didn't want to be in this position" Surely that was the idea all along, Vichai was 52 when he bought the club, the long term plan would have been for Top to takeover as chairman - you'd have thought.

 

If he didn't want to be in this position at all, either sell up or appoint better directors so he barely had to think about the club at all. Stringing out this ownership and running the club into the ground in memorandum of his dad is not any good for anybody.

 

The narrative from the very, very start was that Vichai was buying the club for his son. 

 

Obviously he didn't want to be in this position so soon and he definitely wasn't and isn't particularly ready. 

 

This is why nepotism and hereditary leadership is problematic, though, and why the world's countries don't work that way anymore. The son of the king isn't necessarily fit to be the king, it's possible Top would never be a particularly great chairman. 

 

Even his father wasn't perfect, it'd be interesting to see if Vichai would have modernised the management structure of the club, ultimately the trust of Rudkin started on his watch. We do know Vichai learned from his mistakes more than Top had but he still made more in the first place than other owners. 

 

I think ultimately Top will be remembered with some sympathy for what happened to his father but also with the recognition that he just wasn't up to the task. 

 

[dmayne7]

Weird scenario. Lots of extenuating circumstances that shouldn't be ignored when it comes to his legacy but some baffling things that override that.

 

Things that don't sit well are how he's front an centre when things go well but nowhere to be seen when things don't work. Looking back at the last time we were into the championship and he some how made all the celebrations about him, which were misguided given the abject failure that 'success' came from.

[MrSpaM]

Won us the FA cup, so he's still the second best owner to bring us silverwear

[adejo92]

Sooner he fvcks off the better.

 

But his dad will forever be remembered. 

[Muzzy_no7]

How will Top be remembered?

 

As an absent, inept Plonker.

 

His dad? 
 

Legend. 
 

Time for Top and KP to sell up and competence brought in with a new DOF and sporting director. 

[Fox92]

1 minute ago, Muzzy_no7 said:

How will Top be remembered?

 

As an absent, inept Plonker.

 

His dad? 
 

Legend. 
 

Time for Top and KP to sell up and competence brought in with a new DOF and sporting director. 

And yet under Top we were more successful than under Vichai.

[foxfanazer]

2 hours ago, ALC Fox said:

I think it's quite difficult to fairly judge a guy who was parachuted into multiple areas of responsibility that he just wasn't prepared for at a time when he should have been grieving the tragic loss of his father, while also knowing that any point he could have lost other members of his family or he could have been in that helicopter on any other day.

 

The squad we had at the time, the one that knew and loved both him and Vichai, will have helped him through this process both personally as people he had close relationships with, but also with their performances on the pitch.

 

It is no secret that Top is/was less level headed than Vichai. The sacking/non-sacking of Pearson is proof of that, and testament to Vichai's steady hand as that situation was smoothed over at the time.

 

To expect Top to be as successful as the man who built his company and juggled multiple interests is quite fanciful. I can see why Top would have wanted to do it, but in hindsight I think perhaps he should have appointed somebody else as the club's chairperson in order for him to fully focus on doing justice to King Power, and for someone else to do the same with Leicester City and someone else with OH Leuven.

 

Expecting Top to emulate a man of Vichai's years in terms of wisdom, business nous and experience is unfair, I think.

 

Now, he put all of this on himself, and ultimately he must bear responsibility for how the club has declined under his stewardship with its failure to adapt to changing Profit & Sustainability Rules and how it abandoned the sell-to-buy model to appease Brendan Rodgers, a coach that the club undoubtedly thought would lead us through a sustained period of success, perhaps winning more than the solitary FA Cup that he did, reaching or even winning a Conference League or Europa League final and tasting Champions League football again.

 

All signs currently point towards Top not being able to arrest the slide, with the following issues proof of that:

 

- Veering from one type of manager to the next with no coherent plan, including being linked to vastly different managers in the same recruitment process

- Letting multiple prize assets leave the club for nothing

- Two relegations in three seasons

- Too much loyalty shown to people in high positions who are not performing

- Always operating right on the edge financially, worming our way out of PSR sanctions on technicalities, and risking it all on immediate returns to the Premier League and the chance of staying there

 

There is, quite rightly, a lot of goodwill among our fanbase towards Top for what he was a part of before his father died, how he handled a period of personal heartbreak in the public eye, the way in which he took on responsibility for the club afterwards, and how he continues to support not just the club but the city as well.

 

Also, arguably, we're now really seeing the investment made into Seagrave bear fruit, with multiple young players coming through at the same time who are good enough to play for the first team and possibly help us achieve promotion. And there aren't many better feelings as a fan than watching a young player graduate from the academy and become an important first-team player. These young kids each have the chance to become club legends, or at least engender a lot of goodwill through their big-money sales, giving the club the chance to overcome its current financial woes.

 

I'd be happy for Top to remain the owner of the club. But huge changes are needed whether he sells the club or not. If he stays, we need an overhaul in senior positions. Proper proven performers in a football environment who understand what it takes to build a team and take a club forward. People with their fingers on the pulse and who will rely on proper analysis in the recruitment of managers and players, and who will keep the club on an even keel financially, providing a sense of optimism whatever happens on the pitch.

 

I'd be happy for Top to relinquish his role of chairman, too. I imagine that would be a difficult thing for him to do. But I think he should focus on King Power and come back to the club when he's a bit older, wiser and savvier, and let others take the club to the next level so there is something wonderful for him to come back to in years to come.

Cracking post that

[Sol thewall Bamba]

1 hour ago, MrSpaM said:

Won us the FA cup, so he's still the second best owner to bring us silverwear

[ramboacdc]

Will always be remembered to me as the one who sacked the manager, but didn't tell his dad. Then the dad made him hire him back and punished him by sending him to go be a monk for some time. 

[don_danbury]

34 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

And yet under Top we were more successful than under Vichai.

You forgetting the 2 relegations?? Won the prem under vichai and were an established pl side 

[Gubbins]

3 hours ago, ALC Fox said:

 

It is no secret that Top is/was less level headed than Vichai. The sacking/non-sacking of Pearson is proof of that, and testament to Vichai's steady hand as that situation was smoothed over at the time.

 

Im sure that's the other way round and that Top convinced Vichai not to sack him.

[Muzzy_no7]

6 minutes ago, don_danbury said:

You forgetting the 2 relegations?? Won the prem under vichai and were an established pl side 

The steady and then drastic decline after 2020 shows Top up, massively. 

[Bluearmyfox28]

For me he will be remembered as the man who crippled his dad’s legacy due to being a people pleaser and wanting to forge good relationships rather than being business savvy. 
 

He doesn’t have the bottle to make tough decisions, something his dad had no concerns with doing.

[Stadt]

2 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

The narrative from the very, very start was that Vichai was buying the club for his son. 

 

Obviously he didn't want to be in this position so soon and he definitely wasn't and isn't particularly ready. 

 

This is why nepotism and hereditary leadership is problematic, though, and why the world's countries don't work that way anymore. The son of the king isn't necessarily fit to be the king, it's possible Top would never be a particularly great chairman. 

 

Even his father wasn't perfect, it'd be interesting to see if Vichai would have modernised the management structure of the club, ultimately the trust of Rudkin started on his watch. We do know Vichai learned from his mistakes more than Top had but he still made more in the first place than other owners. 

 

I think ultimately Top will be remembered with some sympathy for what happened to his father but also with the recognition that he just wasn't up to the task. 

 

He's had an elite education (at a Catholic school iirc - bizarrely), he'd been a director for 7 years, worked with some very good managers and people. He's had all the tools, levers and experiences available to him - he's just not very competent and worse than that he's disinterested. 

 

They were all (Vichai included) very lucky Nigel Pearson had a vision to appoint excellent members of staff that built legacy systems that could continue, for a time, without the people that put them in place. Walsh as assistant manager and head of recruitment is a genius bit of alignment that I'm surprised hasn't been repeated elsewhere. Because they had such rare, altruistic and forward thinking manager (he was basically the DoF as Norcroft said on BSLB) it completely atrophied - if they ever had it - the ownership and directors ability to put people in place.

 

 

[Lambert09]

I think there are 3 paths from here. One where he continues as he’s been doing and takes the club further backwards than when his family purchased us and he’s seen as an ultimate failure. 
 

one where he yo-yos us for a few seasons and eventually sells and is seen as incompetent but leaves with an okay reputation or at least he wouldn’t be hated 

 

the 3rd path is he rights the wrongs. Leans into youth development, makes us financially sustainable. Gets past all the psr nonsense, replaces the board and gets us back into the prem and stable. 
 

Of the 3 I think the positive one sounds the most unrealistic 

Edited 14 July 2025 by Lambert09

[Guppys Love Child]

Personally I can't wait for the incompetent, spoilt, nepo baby to sell up and fvck off to play with his horses.

 

 IMO, he's just as complicit as Jon, Sue and any other influencing board members in destroying his father's legacy and landing us in our current weapons grade sh1tshow of a mess with their catalogue of horrendous decisions that are made time and time again with no concept of learning from them.

 

Due to his stupidiity and and in-action he's continued to stand by Jon and Sue when someone like his father would have started questioning their poor performances and given them their marching orders years back, the same with the odious, narcissistic little leprechaun Rodgers, he too would have gone way before he did.

 

It's been nearly 7 years since the tragic passing of his father,  and we started in a slow decline the following year, which gradually turned into a "yellow" snowball, he's had  time to learn and mature.

 

Currently under his ownership we as fans have been treated with borderline contempt, a £25 charge to keep a bit of plastic, deafening silences,  amongst a list of other failings we have all debated on these forum pages.

 

His answer, give the customers, sorry fans some piss warm beer and a donut when they get too rowdy.

 

Sorry. his past and current actions have done enough to sour his relationship with me. 

 

 

[Dan]

He's staggeringly bad for somebody who has been in enough of an environment to know better. I'm not expecting him to work miracles but he's inept to a level you can barely believe.