Leicester City, once Premier League champions, have dropped into League One after back-to-back relegations, but the historic achievements under their Thai ownership remain significant.

Leicester began their League One season with a 1-1 draw away to Notts County on Saturday, just days after the club was placed on the market.

The Foxes have been owned by Thai retail group King Power since 2010. Six years later, the club had risen from the Championship to win an extraordinary Premier League title, widely regarded as one of football’s greatest fairytale triumphs.

However, the death of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in a helicopter crash outside the stadium in 2018 was a huge blow to everyone connected with Leicester, and the club has since suffered two relegations in two years under the leadership of his son, Aiyawatt.

Leicester’s decline through the divisions has brought heavy criticism of the decisions taken at the club in recent years, and that pressure from supporters has now resulted in King Power deciding to put the club up for sale for £200m.

Former England striker Emile Heskey, a Leicester City great who started his career with the club and now serves as head of football development for the club’s women’s teams, believes any sale may take some time, judging by how similar situations have unfolded at other clubs seeking new owners.

“I don’t think it will be reasonably soon, I’d say there will be a lot of protracted dealings to try to get that over the line, but I think we can’t take away from what the Thai family have done for us in Leicester, for us in football and us in the Premier League,” he told FourFourTwo.

“Leicester City and the owners made every club around the country believe that they had a chance – that you never know, it might happen.

“It’s gone a little bit sour, but they’ve done a fantastic job up to now. Whoever takes over has a wonderful foundation with training facilities, both men and women, stadium, and a decent squad to now springboard into something different.

“You can only take your hat off to them and thank them for what they’ve done, not only for the club but for the city as well.

“They’ve done some fantastic things at the hospital, children’s charities, they’ve done everything.”

While Heskey accepts that results for the men’s side have been poor on the pitch in recent times, he is convinced the owners have always been trying to bring success to the club.

“They have, and they’ve done what they believed was right for the club,” he said.

“Yes, it’s gone a little bit sour, it’s gone a little bit left, but you can’t blame them because the reality is that with the financial fair play, they’ve overspent.

“You can’t say they didn’t spend. That’s one of the things that fans say at a lot of clubs – ‘We’re not spending’. But no, they have spent, they’ve overspent, to try to get out of the hole.

“They tried to do it the way that they believed was right – now we’re in a bit of a pickle, and it’s for someone else to probably take it to the next stage.”