{"id":20979,"date":"2018-11-03T20:22:31","date_gmt":"2018-11-03T20:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20979"},"modified":"2018-11-03T20:22:31","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T20:22:31","slug":"royal-honour-for-leicester-city-owner-at-funeral-in-thailand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20979","title":{"rendered":"Royal honour for Leicester City owner at funeral in Thailand"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An elaborate funeral is under way for Thai billionaire and Leicester City owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who, along with four others, was killed last Saturday in a\u00a0helicopter crash<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The royally-sponsored funeral began on Saturday at a temple in Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, where mourners included top government officials, businessmen and other public figures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The funeral began with a bathing ritual using royally-bestowed water and an eight-sided urn lent as an honour by King Maha Vajiralongkorn.<\/p>\n

The grounds of the Wat Thepsirin temple were heavily guarded by scores of security officers. White sheets were lowered to block outsiders and media from viewing the proceedings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vichai’s body was flown to Thailand<\/a> on Friday in advance of the official ceremony, which lasts until November 9. The body will be preserved for 100 days before being cremated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most of Leicester City players plan to travel to Bangkok for the funeral after their match with Cardiff City on Saturday.<\/p>\n

“It’s a very difficult time for his family and I’m here to show support,” said Kiattisak Senamuang, a former Thai national football team coach and player.<\/p>\n

“May Vichai rest in peace,” he said.<\/p>\n

Vichai, 60, died on October 27, when his helicopter crashed outside Leicester City’s King Power Stadium shortly after the end of a match.<\/p>\n

Two staff members, Nusara Suknamai, Kaveporn Punpare, pilot Eric Swaffer and his partner Izabela Roza Lechowicz were also killed in the incident.<\/p>\n

The UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) is investigating the cause of the crash.<\/p>\n

Devout Buddhist loved by fans<\/h2>\n
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<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vichai helped Leicester beat 5,000-to-1 odds to claim Premier League victory in 2016 [File: Andrew Boyers\/Reuters]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Tributes were also paid to Vichai and the others killed in the crash at Saturday’s match in Wales, where a wreath was laid and a minute’s silence was observed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A devout Buddhist, Vichai had monks regularly bless the King Power Stadium for good luck.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vichai was hugely popular with fans of the previously unfancied side from central England<\/a>, which went on to stun the football<\/a> world by winning the league title in 2016.<\/p>\n

He pumped millions of pounds into the club, helping to steer them to Premier League victory<\/a> despite having started the season as 5,000-to-1 outsiders.<\/p>\n

Following the win, Vichai gifted each of the 19 players a BMWi8 car.<\/p>\n

A self-made businessman and father of four, Vichai founded his company King Power in 1989.<\/p>\n

The duty-free business got a boost in 2006 when it was granted an airport monopoly under the government of then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.<\/p>\n

According to Forbes magazine, Vichai was the fifth-richest person in Thailand with an estimated net worth of $4.9bn.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2012, the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand bestowed Vichai – originally called Raksriaksorn – with the new surname “Srivaddhanaprabha”, meaning “light of progressive glory” in the Thai language, as a royal honour.<\/p>\n

An avid polo player, Vichai’s empire also includes the VR Polo Club in Bangkok. In May 2017, he bought Belgian football club, Oud-Heverlee Leuven.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vichai was popular with the club’s fans and was a familiar face at matches [Peter Nicholls\/Reuters]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An elaborate funeral is under way for Thai billionaire and Leicester City owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who, along with four others, was killed last Saturday in a\u00a0helicopter crash. The royally-sponsored funeral began on Saturday at a temple in Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, where mourners included top government officials, businessmen and other public figures.\u00a0 The funeral began with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":20980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}