Mark Selby reacts to Leicester relegation as snooker star texts Jamie Vardy | Other | Sport
Mark Selby has admitted it is painful to witness Leicester City‘s relegation to League One. Yet the four-time world snooker champion can still reflect warmly on what has been a rollercoaster decade for his beloved Foxes. Just 10 years on from their extraordinary Premier League triumph, City will compete in the third tier next season.
Selby, who faces Wu Yize in the Crucible second round, said: “Obviously, yeah, it’s tough because we’ve experienced the good times and now. But if somebody had said to me in 2015 that you’d have won the Premier League, FA Cup, quarter-finals of Champions League, Community Shield, all that, and then 10 years on you’d be in League One, I’d have still taken that.
“What we’re doing at the minute, before we won the Premier League, that was just Leicester as a club.
“We’d get promoted, we’d get relegated, we’d get promoted, get relegated. So just one of those things.”
Many supporters remain deeply frustrated with owner and chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, but Selby has some sympathy for the Thai businessman.
He added: “A lot of the fans are on his back saying he needs to sell the club and everything, but you’ve got to take a step back and look what’s actually happened to him.
“I mean, losing his father, who was basically like the brains and the businessman behind it and just losing him in that tragic accident.
“And then he’s basically been given a whole business at early 30s, which probably he had no involvement with at the time.
“It’s like one of my friends passing away and saying: ‘There you go Mark, you run the business and I’ve got no qualification to do it’. It’s difficult.
“When you look at that as well, it’s difficult, obviously, what he’s had to step up to try and do. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
Selby is mates with Leicester legend Jamie Vardy, who is now at Italian outfit Cremonese.
He said: “I texted him the other week saying: ‘Any chance of you coming back?’. He’s been a great servant for us and you can’t blame him going somewhere else. He’s still doing it now.”
