Ten years after winning the Premier League title, Leicester City are now only in third place. Above all, the pompous training ground does not fit in at all – and underlines how much has gone wrong.
Leicester City have had nothing to do with “world class” for some time now. Nevertheless, there are good reasons why the term can still be found on the English club’s official website two days after they were relegated to the third-tier League One. After all, there is no other way to describe their training ground.
It is just a side note of the merciless fall that the Foxes are experiencing exactly ten years after their sensational championship in 2016, but a particularly curious one: the most luxurious training ground of a third division soccer club will be located north of Leicester in 2026/27.
When Leicester were suddenly allowed to call themselves Premier League champions, those responsible initially knew how to classify this correctly. Instead of immediately entering the rat race of the top English teams, they wanted to develop step by step. They wanted to create something sustainable – and that included a new training ground of such a high standard that the club would still be able to benefit from it decades later. So much for the theory.
14 soccer pitches – and even a private golf course
From 2018, seven buildings, 21 pitches – including 14 full-size soccer pitches – a main training pitch with 499 seats and floodlights, high-quality sports science and medical facilities, bespoke fitness and hydrotherapy areas and a private nine-hole golf course were built on an area of 185 hectares at a cost of around 120 million euros. In short: “one of the most modern sports facilities in the world”, as the club itself writes.
The main building, which includes numerous offices, a restaurant and leisure areas for the first team, is named after the late club owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who had driven the project forward with vehemence but did not live to see its completion.
What was intended to serve as a symbol of the great, long-term ambitions now stands for something else, however: how incredibly many wrong decisions have been made in the core business in recent years. Under these conditions, the club must first manage to be relegated to the Championship twice and now even to League One.
The club not only has to accept severe economic cuts, but also maintain a training ground that was never designed for third division soccer. The former flagship project threatens to become a cost trap, at least temporarily.
