Leicester City have confirmed that club captain Jamie Vardy will leave at the end of the season after 13 years at the club.
The 38-year-old has scored the third-most goals in the club’s history, with 198 goals in 496 appearances. Of those goals, 143 have come in the Premier League, putting him 15th on the league’s all-time scoring charts.
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This season, Vardy has scored eight goals in 32 appearances across all competitions. He has started all but two of Leicester’s 33 Premier League games. Vardy last signed a one-year contract extension at Leicester last summer, after they were promoted back to the top flight.
“Jamie is unique,” Leicester chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha said, via the club website. “He is a special player and an even more special person. He holds a place in the hearts of everyone connected to Leicester City, and he certainly has my deepest respect and affection. I am endlessly grateful for everything he has given to this football club.
“Although Jamie’s time with us as a player is ending, he and his family will always be welcomed back to King Power Stadium with open arms after all he has achieved. On behalf of everyone at Leicester City, I wish Jamie and his family the very best for the future and I know our supporters will join us in giving him the send-off he deserves at the end of this season.”
Vardy joined Leicester while they were in the Championship in May 2012 from Fleetwood Town, who the Englishman had just helped win what is now the National League and earn promotion to the EFL for the first time.
Leicester won the Championship in Vardy’s second season at the club and the striker made his Premier League debut in August 2013. He scored eight goals that season as Leicester avoided relegation and finished 14th. The following year, he scored 24 goals — including a record-breaking stretch of scoring in 11 games in a row — as Leicester produced one of the biggest sporting shocks ever to win the Premier League in the 2015-16 season.
Vardy scored double figures for the next six seasons, winning the golden boot for the first time in 2020.
He was reduced to more of a bench role in 2022-23, making 18 substitute appearances in the league as Leicester were relegated. He scored 15 goals in the second tier last season, helping the team achieve promotion straight back to the top flight under Enzo Maresca.
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At international level, Vardy earned his first of 26 England caps in 2015 and scored for the side seven times. He appeared at Euro 2016 and at the 2018 World Cup, stepping away from international competition after the latter.
Leicester are 19th in the league and their defeat by Liverpool on Sunday confirmed their relegation back to the Championship after just one season in the Premier League.
‘Leicester’s greatest, but exit felt inevitable’
Analysis from Ed Mackey
Vardy bows out as undoubtedly Leicester’s greatest ever player and one of the finest strikers the Premier League has ever seen.
He needs four more appearances to become just the third man to play 500 times for Leicester and needs only a couple more goals to follow Arthurs Chandley and Rowley in reaching 200 for the club.
Put that with four winners’ medals — one Premier League, one FA Cup and two Championship — and it is fair to say the 26-time England international has paid back the £1million that was spent to bring him from non league in 2012.
But Vardy’s departure felt inevitable this year. While still top goalscorer this term, it is a sign of a club’s gross mismanagement in recent years that a 38-year-old has been required to start 31 of 33 league matches this season.
Leicester fans, and perhaps even Vardy himself, would have wanted to see him retire at the club but seven goals and three assists in the league this season show that he can still offer a threat, even if just off the bench, at the top level.
There won’t be many a dry eye in the house when he plays his final game at King Power Stadium against Ipswich on May 18.
(Michael Regan/Getty Images)
