There were banks of empty seats at The King Power Stadium for Leicester City’s Championship match against West Bromwich Albion on January 5.

The Monday evening Championship match between Leicester City and West Bromwich Albion was shown live on television, yet hundreds of Leicester fans missed out on what turned out to be a successful evening for the home side.

On the pitch, the Foxes had a decent night. Jordan Ayew gave Leicester an 18th-minute lead, which was canceled out by Karlan Grant for the Baggies, but Abdul Fatawa scored a 94th-minute winner to give the home side all three points and raise them to 12th position in the Championship table. Ryan Mason, the West Brom head coach, was fired the next morning.

However, the match was played in front of banks of empty seats, with thousands of Leicester fans boycotting it, demonstrating their dissatisfaction with the club’s recent course.

The Leicester City boycott was a protest against senior management for operating the team.

The Sun has reported on the reasons for the boycott, revealing that “thousands of fans have decided to show their fury towards owner Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha by missing tonight’s showdown with Midlands rivals West Brom”.

Their findings indicate that “a significant portion of the fanbase feel he has been guilty of financial mismanagement and become disinterested after only watching a limited number of games this season” .

According to The Sun, a fan organization published the following statement before to the match:

A rising percentage of fans believe the club is poorly administered, that supporter concerns are often ignored, and that substantial change occurs only when pressure becomes too great to ignore. Attendance has been considered as a given, rather than a sign of confidence. This is about standards, responsibility, and the long-term viability of Leicester City. A single match boycott will not solve structural issues, but a noticeably smaller crowd cannot be ignored. For many supporters, the West Brom game represents an opportunity to send a statement.

LeicesterLive had claimed that head coach Marti Cifuentes had urged fans to attend the game, reporting him as saying: “I’m not aware of anything, regrettably. I understand that we are not in the best of positions as a squad. I realize how frustrated many fans are. I have been in situations like this before. Everyone is free to share their opinions, but the only way to improve things is to stick together.

For a long time, Leicester fans have been disgruntled with the way their club is run.

Attendance figures for EFL games usually indicate the number of tickets sold and include all season-ticket holders, making it nearly impossible to determine how many people boycotted this game. According to one estimate posted on the Leicester fan community Foxes Talk, as few as 12,500 fans may have attended.

Even the claimed attendance of 27,130 indicated that something was going on at the club. This was the lowest reported attendance for a Championship match at The King Power Stadium this season, suggesting that both season-ticket holders and those who purchased tickets on a match-by-match basis did not attend the West Brom game.

This reported attendance was 4,200 lower than the 31,354 that the club reported for their home encounter against Derby County a week earlier; paradoxically, the Derby number was their largest reported crowd of the season.

Leicester City fans have long been dissatisfied with the club’s management. According to Leicester Live, a poll conducted by the Foxes Trust in the summer of 2025 found that “4% of City fans surveyed by the supporters group remain confident in the senior management to “effectively manage the club day-to-day,” while only 9% believe the current owners are doing a “good job,” and “93% want changes in the boardroom.”

The club has spent the 2025-26 season under threat of a points deduction due to Profit & Sustainability Rules (PSR) infractions. TalkSPORT stated in November that, if proven, these violations would most likely result in a six-point deduction, but this has yet to be substantiated and is mostly hypothetical. If the deduction was enforced following the West Brom match, the Foxes would fall to 18th position in the Championship table.

Leicester has been struggling financially as a result of longstanding issues with the club’s Thai owners, whose economic interests have declined since the epidemic. However, fans have criticized the club’s leadership, including Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, who took over after his father Vichai was killed in a helicopter crash outside The King Power Stadium in October 2018, and John Rudkin, Director of Football.

Three points on the pitch may have alleviated Leicester City fans’ concerns that they could be dragged into a second consecutive relegation fight as a result of any points deduction, but it remains the case that the Foxes are underperforming in the Championship for a team that wa

The club has spent the 2025-26 season under threat of a points deduction due to Profit & Sustainability Rules (PSR) infractions. TalkSPORT stated in November that, if proven, these violations would most likely result in a six-point deduction, but this has yet to be substantiated and is mostly hypothetical. If the deduction was enforced following the West Brom match, the Foxes would fall to 18th position in the Championship table.