Players and staff from Leicester City arrived in Bangkok yesterday to attend a mourning rite for the club’s chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, whose death last week in a helicopter crash stunned the Premier League club.
Yesterday marked the second day of a week-long ceremony held at Wat Thepsirin, one of Bangkok’s most famous temples which typically serves as the site for funerals of prominent Thais. Over the coming days Thailand’s business and political elites are expected to visit the temple to pay their respects, while monks will chant Buddhist verses over the duty-free mogul’s body.
Vichai, 60, died last week, along with four others, when his helicopter crashed and burst into flames moments after taking off from Leicester’s pitch following a match. His death sent shockwaves through Leicester, where the charismatic Vichai had become a beloved figure in the club and the city — a feat rarely achieved by the Premier League’s foreign owners. It was under Vichai’s ownership that Leicester crafted one of the biggest fairytales in English football history by winning the 2015/16 Premier League, having started the season as 5,000-1 outsiders for the title.
On Saturday the team played at Cardiff City, their first match since his death, with players from both teams coming together to pay their respects before the game. Massive banners featuring Thailand’s flag saying “RIP Vichai” moved across the stadium, and the crowd observed a minute of silence. Fans wore T-shirts with Vichai’s picture on it, underneath the words “The Boss”.
After the match, 13 members of Leicester City  boarded a chartered flight to Bangkok. Upon entering the temple, they gave Vichai’s family a hug, and then offered up jasmine flowers as they knelt in front of a octagonal bejeweled urn given by the king to pay their final respects to their beloved chairman.
Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana, the daughter of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, also attended the Buddhist rite, arriving about 30 minutes before the start of the recitation ceremony. The first three days of the elaborate ceremony will have royal sponsorship. After the week-long ceremony, Vichai’s body will be kept for 100 days before cremation, though a date has yet to be set. 
Vichai’s company started out with a single store in Bangkok; today, his King Power empire includes a monopoly over the duty-free shops in Thailand’s tourist-heavy airports.
Vichai leaves behind a wife and four children, two sons and two daughters. The four other crash victims were identified by British police as Nursara Suknamai — an actress and a runner-up in Miss Thailand Universe in 2005 — and Kaveporn Punpare, both members of Vichai’s staff, pilot Eric Swaffer and passenger Izabela Roza Lechowicz.