Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha helicopter crash: who was the Leicester City owner?

Champions: Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri and chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha celebrate the Premier League title in 2016
Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
Jason Collie28 October 2018

When Thai businessman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha boasted that he wanted newly-promoted Leicester City to make a top five Premier League finish within three years in 2014, no one really took him seriously.

In the end it took only two years and Leicester didn't just finish in the top five - they won the Premier League in one of football's greatest fairy tales.

Srivaddhanaprabha​ had clearly been thinking big - a trait he has shown throughout his life that has seen him amass a fortune reportedly worth US$3.3bn (£2.57bn).

Srivaddhanaprabha, who was one of five who died when his helicopter crashed outside of Leicester City's stadium on Saturday night, was born in April 1958 in Bangkok, to a Thai-Chinese family.

Getty Images

He made his fortune in the duty-free business, after founding the firm King Power.

The firm received a royal warrant from the King of Thailand in 2009 but it was the 2010 purchase of Leicester City, then in the Championship, that brought him to real international prominence.

Srivaddhanaprabha became chairman of the club a year later and oversaw promotion to the Premier League in 2014.

The club only survived its first season back in the big time by the skin of its teeth and Srivaddhanaprabha brought in Claudio Ranieri as coach, leading to Leicester's staggering Championship in 2015-16.

( Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

According to Forbes he is Thailand's seventh richest man and he bought each of Leicester's squad a £105,000 BMW i8 as a reward.

Last year Srivaddhanaprabha bought his second club, OH Leuven in Belgium.

Football is not the father-of-four's only sporting passion. He is an avid polo player, founding the Thailand Polo Association 20 years ago and he also owns the VR club in Bangkok.

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