Leicester City players pay respects at owner’s Thai funeral

BANGKOK – Leicester City manager Claude Puel led his soccer team’s players as they arrived Sunday at a Bangkok temple to pay their respects to the club’s late founder.

Thai billionaire Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was killed when his helicopter crashed Oct. 27 in a parking lot next to the English Premier League club’s stadium.

His funeral began Saturday, with other ceremonies scheduled through Nov. 9.

The Leicester City players arrived Sunday after travelling to Bangkok following their match with Cardiff City the day before. In its first game since Vichai’s death, Leicester won an emotional and highly charged match 1-0.

Vichai oversaw one of the greatest underdog successes in sports when his 5,000-1 outsiders won the English Premier League title in 2016.

The business world remembers Vichai as the retail entrepreneur who grew Thailand’s massive King Power duty-free chain. Today the King Power empire is worth 3.8 billion pounds ($4.88 billion), according to Forbes, with Vichai having been the fifth-richest person in Thailand.