Leicester City emerged this weekend not only as FA Cup winners, but champions of the game every football fan fell in love with.
By beating Chelsea to lift the first FA Cup in their history, Leicester announced themselves as the antidote to the money-hungry plague that is ravishing football – proof that the game should be about fans, not finances.
BT Sport
I can’t have been the only person in tears watching Brendan Rodgers embrace club owner Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha.
Eyes were on Khun Top throughout the game, with television cameras often panning back to the Foxes owner who has picked up his late father’s torch to guide Leicester to more success – still against the odds.
And yet, the owner did not milk the spotlight.
At full-time, with their cup success confirmed, there was a fist pump from the owner before he looked to the sky, hands together in a prayer-like gesture, as he took a moment to remember his much-loved dad, Khun Vichai.
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One of the Wembley stands unoccupied by fans bore a huge banner of the late owner, while in the build-up manager Rodgers explained how he and the team were playing in Vichai’s memory and sought to make him proud by lifting another trophy.
After letting the players have their moment, celebrating in front of jubilant returning supporters for the first time in too long and lifting the FA Cup in a burst of white and blue streamers and pyrotechnics, the Thai businessman quietly made his way into the pitch.
It wasn’t until goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel noticed him and he got involved in the celebrations, too. He hugged player after player before making a beeline for Rodgers, who met in a long embrace.
It was a beautiful moment, but perhaps what made it even more special was that it was in stark contrast to what is happening elsewhere in the Premier League and wider European football.
Manchester United protests against the Glazers, Arsenal anger towards Stan Kroenke, Liverpool fans blasting FSG’s greed, Tottenham supporters even took to the streets of north London hours before the FA Cup final kicked off to tell ENIC and Daniel Levy to get lost, with banners mocking the club’s motto reading: ‘To Dare Is Too Dear’.
And yet, here we have an owner who is as loved by the supporters and their heroes on the pitch, who just won the club’s first ever FA Cup in their 137 year history.
While the Premier League’s ‘big six’ all harbour ambitions that apparently exceed the Premier League and Champions League, with their failed European Super League plans, Leicester have been quietly proving why football is known as ‘The Beautiful Game’.
An unlikely and historic Premier League title win and now an FA Cup victory in the space of six seasons, they’re no longer the underdogs other fans and perhaps these other clubs believe they are.
Sky Sports News
AFP
Getty
They are forcing their way into the Premier League’s top four clubs, and they are doing it the way we all want. No mega millions spent, no wasteful overspending and big-money flops.
King Power have a devotion to their club probably unmatched in the entire Premier League. They have invested in the club’s facilities, believed in a manager, invested in the right players and built a team that is proving a nuisance to the rest of England’s big boys.
It’s an owner/manager, owner/player and owner/fan relationship every supporter dreams of.
Khun Vichai and now Khun Top are no ‘Silent Stan’, they are very present leaders of a club, and their success could not be more deserved.
Now it’s time for the league’s other owners to stand up, and take notice.
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As Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand said on BT Sport, while Khun Top hugged Rodgers like a brother: “In a time where the relationships between owners, players and fans are so fractured, to see what we’re seeing here is so refreshing.
“I don’t think there is a club more connected from top to bottom as what we see with this club.”
“There will be some big clubs out there, and some I played for who will be jealous and envious of these owners,” added former Chelsea and Liverpool midfielder Joe Cole.
“You can be absent owners, but this is what you want, this is what football is about, the collaboration between everyone at the club.
“It’s just like Sir Alex Ferguson said, you need everyone pointing in the right direction and this club has got everyone to man, woman and child pointing in the right direction.
“I don’t think you’ll see another owner come on the pitch and be loved like this man has been loved, to be embraced as he has been embraced.”
“They back the club, they back the managers and there’s a face to it, that’s the difference,” said Ferdinaind.
“I think a lot of other owners can take heed from this.”
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