Leicester City have been deducted six points for breaching PSR and have been plunged into a Championship relegation battle, with those responsible still leading the club
Jordan Blackwell
12:40, 06 Feb 2026Updated 13:14, 06 Feb 2026
Leicester City’s director of football Jon Rudkin with chairman Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha(Image: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Six points is not so bad. After months of speculation that it could be nine or even 12, seeing two wins wiped off their tally doesn’t feel so devastating.
Leicester City avoided deductions over aggravating circumstances and their punishment for their breach of Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) was calculated purely on a financial basis.
While the club are now considering whether they will appeal, there will be supporters who are happy to accept the six-point sanction so that a line can be drawn under this mess and they can crack on without having to think about PSR again, or at least for a while.
But they can’t really move on. Because while there is relief that the deduction is not as severe as was once mooted, there is also rage that the club have ended up in a position where they’re being deducted any points at all.
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At other clubs to fall foul of PSR, it’s been galvanising. Fans have rallied behind their team, turning their anger towards the authorities and a set of rules that benefit the wealthiest sides.
That is not the case at City. Instead, fans see the points deduction as unquestionable proof of how dreadfully the club has been managed at the top.
Bad transfers, over-inflated wages, generous contract extensions, failures to sell assets before their deals expire, poor managerial appointments and significant pay-outs to correct them, there have been mistakes on top of mistakes for years, all leading to this.
It’s not even as if City have overspent and maintained their position as a Premier League regular. They’ve overspent and put themselves in a much worse position. They’re now under threat of falling into the third tier for just the second time in their 142-year history.
So what’s the punishment for this mismanagement? Who will be held accountable? When head coaches fail to pick up enough points, they’re sacked. What about those whose decisions actively lose points? There doesn’t appeat to be anyone held liable.
Jon Rudkin has been at the centre of these decisions. He’s the longest-serving director of football in the country. The chairman’s recent round of interviews showed that, internally, no blame will be laid at Rudkin’s door. That in itself makes the chairman just as culpable for this mess.
There is an acknowledgement that Rudkin’s job is clearly a difficult, overwhelming one, and the solution City have is to bring in a sporting director who will take over some of his duties.
But this new starter will ultimately report to Rudkin. Is that a significant enough change that City can get back to being a well-run club?
It may help managers who have often been unaware of the financial issues the club are facing because it’s not been communicated from above. Albeit, Marti Cifuentes, City’s most recent manager, did not make any such complaints. Maybe the lesson has finally been learned.
But it’s not just that Rudkin has frustrated managers by failing to make clear the lay of the land, sometimes he’s gone too far to appease them.
Leicester City director of football Jon Rudkin and chairman Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha during the defeat to Oxford that cost Marti Cifuentes his job(Image: Pro Sports Images)
City handed Jannik Vestergaard a new three-year contract because Enzo Maresca had pushed for it. A transfer embargo stopped City from announcing this new deal. By the time they could, Maresca wasn’t even at the club.
With this deduction acting as proof of mismanagement and disorganisation, City fans are not going to rally in support of the club. So how will their emotions manifest themselves? We’ll see at Birmingham and, perhaps more so, at home to Southampton on Tuesday.
Chants and banners expressing their anger feel inevitable. There could also be a sadness at the plight of their club. Maybe apathy will take even greater hold and fans won’t turn up again.
This is a squad built on poor decisions and so there is not much of a connection between the fans and players. Maybe there will be a spot of sympathy for a handful of the group, and for a club icon in Andy King who’s having to lead the team through this mess, and maybe that sympathy will bring about a surge in vocal support from the stands.
What about the squad themselves? Maybe the points deduction will light a spark within them. They can’t think that relegation is a far-off possibility when they’re outside the drop zone on goal difference alone. Maybe now the severity of the situation will hit them and that will be reflected in more committed performances.
But also, they could wilt. Many of the players joined the club anticipating playing in the Premier League. They don’t want to be in the Championship anyway, never mind in a relegation battle.
Maybe they too will be angry. They’ve been put under more pressure, and likely exposed to more fan rage, because of matters outside of their control.
City’s place in the Championship is the short-term concern. It should be easier to recruit a new manager now any prospective appointment knows what they’re working with.
In the long term, the aim is to become a well-run club again, one that fans feel enthusiastic to get behind.
With PSR out of the way for now, it feels like steps can be made towards that goal. There are positives, too, to latch onto: the arrival of a new sporting director, a more open strategy to communication, a much greater number of homegrown talents in the first-team squad.
It could be the start of a new cycle, of a new era. But then again, the same people that oversaw the mess are still in place. There’s a broken trust there that’s going to take a long time to fix, if it ever can be.
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