The reason why Leicester City fans boycotted West Brom fixture on Monday | OneFootball

There were many empty seats at The King Power Stadium for Leicester's home match against West Brom as a result of a fan boycott.

There were banks of empty seats at The King Power Stadium for the Championship match between Leicester City and West Bromwich Albion on the 5th January.

The Monday evening Championship match between Leicester City and West Bromwich Albion was shown live on the television, but thousands of Leicester fans missed what turned out to be a decent evening for the home team.

On the pitch, it turned out to be a decent night for the Foxes. Jordan Ayew gave Leicester an 18th-minute lead which was cancelled out by Karlan Grant for the Baggies, but a 94th-minute winner scored by Abdul Fatawa gave the home side all three points, lifting them to 12th place in the Championship table. The West Brom head coach, Ryan Mason, was fired the following morning.

But the match was played in front of banks of empty seats, with thousands of Leicester fans boycotting the match, a sign of the clear unhappiness with the direction that the club has been taking in recent years.

Leicester City boycott was a protest against senior management over the running of the club

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

They report 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".

The Sun reported that a statement had been issued by a fan group ahead of the match:

LeicesterLive had previously reported that head coach Marti Cifuentes had appealed to fans to attend the match, quoting him as having said: "I’m not aware about anything unfortunately. I know that, as a team, we’re not in a situation we would like to be. I understand the frustrations of many fans. I’ve been in situations like this before. Everybody is free to express their opinion but at the same time, the only way to improve things is to stay together."

Leicester fans have been unhappy at the way in which their club is being run for some considerable time

Attendance figures for EFL matches routinely report the number of tickets sold for a match and count all season-ticket holders as present, so getting a precise figure of how many people actually boycotted this fixture is more or less impossible. One estimate on the Leicester fan forum Foxes Talk estimated that as few as 12,500 people may have been in attendance.

And even the reported attendance of 27,130 gave a hint to the fact that something was going on around the club. This number was the lowest reported attendance for a Championship match at The King Power Stadium so far this season, indicating that both season-ticket holders and those who buy their tickets on a match-by-match basis were sitting the West Brom game out.

This reported attendance was 4,200 lower than the 31,354 that the club reported for their home match against Derby County a week earlier; ironically, the figure for the Derby match was their highest reported crowd of the season.

Leicester fans have been unhappy at the running of their club for some considerable time. In a poll held by the Foxes Trust in the summer of 2025, as reported by Leicester Live, "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," while, "93% want changes in the boardroom".

The club has spent the 2025-26 season with the threat of a points deduction over breaches of Profit & Sustainability Rules (PSR) hanging over their head. In November, it was reported by talkSPORT that, if proven, these breaches would most likely result in a six-point deduction, though this remains unconfirmed and is largely speculative. Were that deduction to be applied after the West Brom match, it would drop the Foxes to 18th place in the Championship table.

Leicester have been struggling financially as a result of the ongoing problems faced by the Thai owners of the club, whose business interests have been in decline since the pandemic. But fans have also been critical of the leadership of Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, who took over the running of the club after his father Vichai was killed in a helicopter crash outside The King Power Stadium in October 2018, as well as Director of Football John Rudkin.

Three points on the pitch may have quelled Leicester concerns that they could yet be dragged into a second successive relegation fight as a result of any points deduction a little, but it remains the case that the Foxes are underperforming in the Championship for a side just relegated from the Premier League, and one win seems unlikely to quieten the ongoing unhappiness of many Leicester City fans over the way in which their club is being run.