The chief executive of Leicester City has spoken in a rare interview about her love of the Premier League club.
Susan Whelan had the distinction of being the first female to head up a Premiership-winning club when she took over at the Walkers Stadium 12 years ago
She was working in King Power's duty free business in Bangkok when she was appointed to be the Thai owners’ representative on the Leicester City board.
After becoming chief executive her success in running the club mirrored the team's success on the field. Under her leadership Leicester has beaten all expectations, winning the league in 2016 and FA Cup last year, and enjoying three seasons of European football.
In an interview with the Irish Times she said the cautious approach taken by the owners and management over the years had paid off, and she still enjoyed her involvement.
The club’s Irish chief executive told the newspaper: “Of course I love it. The buzz of a match day is very important.
“Being able to do the charity side of things, the business, the retail, the hospitality, it’s quite all-encompassing and it’s really great fun.
“It’s how much it means to so many people. It’s so important to remember that. It is for the community and for the fans and that is something that is really important.
“The visibility of a football club is very different to other businesses from that point of view.
“I think the hardest bit is the fact that there is so much that is outside your control.
“You have all of the infrastructure in place for success and all of the things that should guarantee success, but because it is sport there is no guarantee of the outcome.
“I suppose that’s what makes it exciting, but in other businesses you have a lot more levers you can pull to influence what the outcome is. When it’s sport it’s not quite as easy.
"We built it up slowly because we never wanted to be subject to terrible crises if there was a change in our league position. People depend on us for their mortgages, for their livelihoods, for all of those things.”
Back in February City revealed that playing behind closed doors, having to repay millions back to the Premier League and getting just half the normal prize money for winning the FA Cup last May – all due to Covid – had cost it around £50 million since the start of the pandemic.
Last season alone Leicester – who finished fifth in the league – made a pre-tax loss of £33 million.
Although hefty, the losses were half what they were the previous year when the season had to be rolled over to the 2020 summer due to the pandemic.
Despite that, City’s owners have kept backing the club, investing £100 million in a new training ground and working on big plans to expand the stadium and facilities around it.
Ms Whelan told the Irish Times: "During the pandemic we didn’t let any of the staff go, we didn’t furlough them, we kept them together, we got them doing outreach stuff into the community to keep them occupied and doing something beneficial.
“I always say to my own team that we have to be about more than football. You can’t win every single weekend and you have to represent something that is bigger than a single result or set of results. We’re very fortunate that we can make – it sounds very cliched – a positive difference to people’s lives sometimes."
