Full name | Leicester City Football Club |
---|---|
Nickname(s) | The Foxes |
Founded | 1884 (as Leicester Fosse FC) |
Ground | King Power Stadium |
Capacity | 32,315 |
Owner | King Power International Group |
Chairman | Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha |
Manager | Craig Shakespeare |
League | Premier League |
2016–17 | Premier League, 12th of 20 |
Website | Club home page |
Leicester City Football Club (/ˌlɛstər ˈsɪti/), also known as the Foxes, is an English professional football club based at the King Power Stadium in Leicester. They compete in the Premier League, England's highest division of football, and are the former champions winning in the 2015-16 season. Having been promoted as champions of the Football League Championship in 2013–14, this signalled a return to the top flight of English football after a decade away.
The club was founded in 1884 as Leicester Fosse F.C., playing on a field near Fosse Road. They moved to Filbert Street in 1891, were elected to the Football League in 1894 and adopted the name Leicester City in 1919. They moved to the nearby Walkers Stadium in 2002, which was renamed the King Power Stadium after a change of ownership in 2011.
Leicester City won the 2015–16 Premier League, their first top-level football championship. They are one of only six clubs to have won the Premier League since its inception in 1992. A number of newspapers described their title win as the greatest sporting upset ever, considering at the start of the season they were favourites to face relegation. Multiple bookmakers had never paid out at such long odds for any sport. Due to the magnitude of the club's title win, it went down in English football history as one of the game's finest ever achievements. The club's previous highest ever finish was second place in the top flight, in Division One in 1928–29. Throughout Leicester's history, they have spent all but one season within the top two leagues of English football. They hold a joint-highest seven second-tier titles (six Second Division and one Championship).