Leicester City's top 5 earners contracted to be relegated into the Championship | OneFootball

FLW takes a look at the Foxes' five highest earners who are under contract for next season.

With the Premier League season drawing to a close next month, it looks increasingly likely that Leicester City will instantly drop straight back down into the Championship.

Despite starting the season reasonably brightly under previous boss Steve Cooper, the Foxes now find themselves adrift of safety by some distance, leaving logic to suggest that their fate is already sealed.

Last season’s two other promoted sides have fared no better. Ipswich Town are arguably the only one of the three to still have a chance of survival, even if that chance looks to be growing slimmer by the game. Meanwhile, Southampton are in a battle just to surpass Derby County’s record lowest points total.

As with most sides who drop out of the top flight, if Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s Leicester do drop down, they will surely be faced with no option but to reduce what is a substantial wage bill.

According to Capology, the Foxes’ weekly wage outlay currently sits at £1.263million, a figure which is over £500,000 per week higher than the Championship’s biggest total.

With that in mind, Football League World takes a look at Leicester’s top five earners who will be under contract for next season, according to estimates from Capology.

Harry Winks - £90,000 per week

A £10million purchase from Tottenham ahead of the 2023/24 campaign, it hasn’t really worked out for Winks at the King Power this term.

Still only 29, Leicester needed the midfielder to enjoy a strong season if they were to stay in the division, but that simply hasn’t materialised.

The former England man’s struggles came to a head recently, when he was dropped from the matchday squad for the defeat to Manchester City, amid reports of a heated falling out with Van Nistelrooy.

Only Jamie Vardy currently earns more than Winks at the East Midlands outfit, but with their veteran talisman’s contract set to expire in the summer, Winks is in line to become the club’s highest earner ahead of their imminent Championship return.

Ricardo Pereira - £80,000 per week

While Pereira was excellent in his first two seasons at Leicester, his Foxes career has faded a little since then.

The Portuguese notched five goals and eight assists over the course of his first two campaigns in English football, but has since been limited to a handful of appearances in Leicester’s three most recent Premier League seasons, as a result of some particularly bad luck with injuries.

He was excellent in 2023/24, as Leicester raced to the second tier title under Enzo Maresca, but has hardly featured at all this term.

Given that Pereira signed his most recent contract at a time when Leicester were expected to be pushing for domestic cups and European positions, the right-back is currently commanding a fairly hefty wage at the club, but it remains to be seen whether he will still be a Foxes player at the start of next season.

Boubakary Soumare - £80,000 per week

Soumare signed a five-year deal at the club when he first joined from French side Lille ahead of the 2021/22 season, but has struggled to ever make a particularly big impression at the King Power Stadium.

After a loan spell with Sevilla last term, the midfielder has arguably produced the brightest showings of his Foxes spell so far this season.

Leicester fans will probably feel that he hasn’t performed well enough over the course of his time with the club to warrant being their fifth-highest earner at present, and he will only climb further up that list next season.

Conor Coady - £75,000 per week

A former England international, Coady’s time at Leicester is still yet to really take off. He joined for a reported fee of £8.5million ahead of their Championship title win last term, but hasn’t ever cemented his place in the side.

The centre half brings vital leadership qualities, which can be extremely important when ensuring members of the squad consistently meet the required standard, both in games and in training.

The former Liverpool academy graduate is under contract until the summer of 2026 and his prior experience of promotion-winning Championship campaigns (with Wolves in 2017/18 and Leicester in 2023/24) could be invaluable if Leicester are to return to the second tier next season.

Wilfred Ndidi - £75,000 per week

Now into his ninth season with the club, Ndidi has been one of Leicester’s most impressive performers over the course of his time with Leicester.

Ndidi arrived in the summer after the Foxes remarkably won the Premier League title in 2015/16 and he has been an extremely reliable performer for them over the years, making over 290 appearances for the club in all competitions.

Bought from Belgian outfit Genk for £15million, Ndidi has provided able cover at centre half on occasion, as well as excelling in his preferred midfield role.

The Nigerian international has been subject to interest from elsewhere on plenty of occasions throughout his Leicester career. Monaco were the most recent club to pursue him in January, while Marseille and Everton were both possible destinations last summer.