Flowers are placed outside Leicester City Football Club after a helicopter crashed in flames the previous day, in Leicester, England, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018. A helicopter belonging to Leicester City's owner — Thai billionaire Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha — crashed in flames in a car park next to the soccer club's stadium shortly after it took off from the field following a Premier League game on Saturday night. (Aaron Chown/PA via AP)
Flowers are placed outside Leicester City Football Club after a helicopter crashed in flames the previous day, in Leicester, England, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018. A helicopter belonging to Leicester City's owner — Thai billionaire Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha — crashed in flames in a car park next to the soccer club's stadium shortly after it took off from the field following a Premier League game on Saturday night. (Aaron Chown/PA via AP) Credit: pa via ap — Aaron Chown

Bangkok — Thai billionaire and Leicester City owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who died when his helicopter crashed in a parking lot next to the soccer club’s stadium on Saturday, was known to fans as a smiling, benevolent man who gave away free beers and hot dogs on his birthday and brought the club its fairytale English Premier League title in 2016. He was 60.

The business world remembered Vichai as the retail entrepreneur who started with one shop and grew Thailand’s massive King Power duty-free chain.

The sight of his personal helicopter taking off from the middle of the field — to take Vichai to his English base near London in Berkshire — was a regular feature after Leicester’s home games. On Saturday evening, it turned into a horror scene when the chopper appeared to suddenly lose power, plummeting to the ground in a parking lot outside the empty stadium and bursting into flames.

The crash sparked emotional scenes in Leicester, the East Midlands city whose devoted soccer fans will forever be grateful to Vichai for bankrolling not only the club’s first title in the world’s foremost soccer league, but one of the most incredible stories in world sports history.

Leicester, only two years after being promoted from England’s second-tier league, was a 5,000-to-1 shot to win the Premier League at the start of the 2015-16 season. But after Vichai brought in veteran Italian manager Claudio Ranieri at the start of the campaign, the Foxes produced a stunning season. They lost only three of their 38 games, to win the title by a comfortable 10-point margin, ahead of far more illustrious rivals Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City and Manchester United.

Though his public comments were limited, Leicester’s ever-smiling chairman became a talisman of the campaign, watching on from his seat in the stadium at home games beside his son, Aiyawatt, the club’s vice chairman.

Vichai became known for his generosity around the club. When Leicester narrowly avoided the threat of relegation to the second tier at the end of 2014-15, he sent “bottle after bottle” of champagne to the dressing room, according to British media reports.

Major League Soccer

Revolution 1, Impact 0

Foxborough, Mass. — Diego Fagundez scored a milestone goal in the 74th minute to give New England a victory over Montreal, keeping the Impact out of the playoffs on the last day of the season.

The 23-year-old Fagundez got the ball just inside the 18 on the right, turned and sent a hard, low shot past diving goalkeeper Evan Bush to become the youngest player in MLS history to reach 50 career goals.

Matt Turner had four saves to get his fifth shutout for Philadelphia (10-13-11), which heads into the playoffs as the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference and plays at third-seeded New York City FC on Wednesday or Thursday in the Knockout Round.

New England and Montreal split a pair of games earlier in the season with the winning team scoring four goals in each game.