Key Takeaways
- Leicester will lose roughly £70 million in revenue after falling into League One.
- The club already spent next season’s parachute payments and transfer cash through high-interest loans.
- League One rules and a shrunken TV deal leave King Power with a huge wage bill and no easy rescue fund.
Leicester City’s 2-2 draw with Hull on Tuesday was not enough to stop a second straight relegation. The Foxes now prepare for life in League One, English football’s third tier, and the numbers look ugly.
Fans stayed away from the King Power Stadium; those who came waved “King Power Out” flags. The anger is aimed at a squad that cost top-flight wages yet collected only two wins from 19 league matches in 2026.
Off the pitch, the club has already eaten tomorrow’s lunch. Australian bank Macquarie has advanced more than £100 million against future transfer fees and parachute cash at interest rates of 8-9 per cent. The last chunk, taken in September, brought forward money still owed for the sales of Tom Cannon, Kasey McAteer and James Justin. January’s deal added the final £35 million parachute payment for 2026-27, meaning that cash is also gone.
Football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire warns the tap is now dry. “They will receive a second-year parachute payment, but it looks as if it has already been cashed in,” he told BBC Sport. “With only £2 million coming from the League One TV deal, there is an awful lot of money going out and very little coming back.”
Leicester posted a £71 million loss for the 2024-25 Premier League season. Total deficits since 2019 stand at £375 million. The wage bill hit £150 million in the top flight; even if clauses cut that to £70 million next season, it would still be more than seven times the average League One salary budget of £9.5 million.
High earners Harry Winks, Oliver Skipp and Jannik Vestergaard remain under long-term contracts, while Patson Daka and Ricardo Pereira are among the few set to leave on free transfers. Selling the rest will be hard when buyers know the club is desperate.
New League One spending rules allow only 60 per cent of owner funding to go to the squad. King Power would have to inject extra cash just to meet the shortfall, yet the Thai duty-free group has restructured after Covid-19 losses and may not have spare capital.
Maguire sums up the fear: “Where is the money coming from? If the owners cannot plug the gap, the losses will have to be absorbed inside League One. The longer they stay there, the worse it gets.”
Leicester need a swift promotion to ease the pain, but the financial hole they have dug makes the climb back even steeper.