Tottenham’s preseason tour to Asia has now been finalized, with the club announcing today that they will take on Leicester City in a friendly match in Bangkok, Thailand on July 23. The announcement was made on Spurs’ social media accounts and their website.
We are delighted to announce that our Men’s First Team will visit Bangkok to face Leicester City on Sunday 23 July during this summer’s Asia-Pacific Tour 2023.
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) May 16, 2023
The club had already announced a visit to Australia (still, somehow, considered “Asia” by FIFA) to play against West Ham in Perth on July 18, and a return to Singapore to face AS Roma on July 25. This visit to Thailand, as expected, falls in the middle of the two dates.
It’ll be Spurs’ first ever visit to Bangkok for a friendly. Thailand probably doesn’t mean a lot to most Tottenham supporters, but it certainly will to Leicester City fans. Leicester’s past owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, was a Thai national who was hugely popular with Foxes fans and who guided the club from relative obscurity to the Premier League title. Srivaddhanaprabha was tragically killed in 2018 after a helicopter he was riding in took off from the King Power Stadium and subsequently crashed, killing everyone on board. The club is now owned by Srivaddhanaprabha’s son, Aiyawatt.
Friendlies are friendlies, and in today’s day and age it’s as much (or more) about being seen by elements of your global fanbase that can contribute to your worldwide marketing as it is the actual football. That’s probably relevant this coming offseason considering that there’s a very real chance that Leicester are going to be relegated to the Championship by the end of this current season. But hey, a nice and easy friendly against a second division side is part and parcel of preseason preparations, right?
