Leicester City’s vice president, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, has made the shocking revelation that Jamie Vardy would turn up drunk to training in the first few months after he signed for the Foxes from Fleetwood Town. The Thai executive also noted that a few stern words aimed at Vardy resulted in the striker reforming his lifestyle and thus taking his career to new heights.
Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha made the revelations in a long and detailed interview with Thailand’s a day magazine, saying “He went straight from the bottom to the Championship, which eventually led him to start drinking booze every single day. We had no idea what to do.”
“I didn’t know about this until someone told me that he came to train while he was still drunk. So I went talk to him myself, I asked ‘do you wish to end your career like this? Do you want to stay here like this? We’ll let your contract run out, then release you. Don’t expect a better career path’.”
“He said he didn’t know what to do with his life. He’d never earned such a large amount of money. So I asked him ‘what’s your dream? How do you think your life should be? Just think carefully about what would you do for the club. I invested in you, do you have to do something in return?”
Also read: 5 things you probably did not know about Jamie Vardy
Vardy’s response to the Vice-President’s words was admirable, as Srivaddhanaprabha went on to explain, saying “After that he simply quit drinking and started working hard in training. His physicality wasn’t as good as it is now. We know he had explosive acceleration, but we simply had no idea he could be this good.”
Leicester almost did not sign Jamie Vardy
Srivaddhanaprabha also revealed that he had major doubts about signing a non-league player for an unheard of price of £1 million, saying “I was against signing Jamie Vardy in the first place.”
“I asked Nigel Pearson and Steve Walsh about him, checked the scout reports, and I started to believe he would be a good signing, but I had to answer the supporters who were asking ‘how is a non-league player worth £1 million?’,”
Srivaddhanaprabha revealed that he feared a backlash from the fans, especially with an atmosphere of foreign owners running clubs out of business in place, saying “It turned out I was the dumbest club owner in the world to them. I asked Pearson and Walsh, if I have only £1m transfer budget for the next season, who would you buy? And they replied ‘Vardy’. Then I said ‘go’.”
“There was outrage from the fans. Some even called me to say 'are you nuts? Why have you spent this much on a non-league player?”
As things turned out, Leicester’s expenditure on Vardy turned out to be a bargain, with the striker’s 22 goals propelling them to the Premier League title.
