The Semp

Geek and Leeds fan

[Adonis Storr @theadelites]

James Trafford to #LUFC is DONE.

Leeds United have broken the record fee for a British goalkeeper for #MCFC's James Trafford.

The 6'5” 23-year-old signs for £40m plus add-ons, on a five year deal.

This is a club-record fee for #LUFC, eclipsing the £35m paid for Georginio Rutter, and Trafford is the fourth-most expensive goalkeeper in history.

James Trafford is England's number one-in-waiting, and this is a massive coup for the Yorkshire club.

And this is also the end to a problem position for Leeds United.

Many have come to Elland Road in recent memory, performed relatively poorly and left.

Marco Silvestri, Bailey Peacock-Farrell, Felix Wiedwald, Kiko Casilla & Illan Meslier – a list of goalkeepers that would send dread shooting down the spine of every Leeds fan.

Karl Darlow was the best goalkeeper Leeds have had since Rob Green did well under Gary Monk.

But James Trafford is another level entirely.

But this is not the first time Leeds United have broken the British record fee for a goalkeeper.

Almost exactly 30 years ago, on 26th July 1996, Leeds signed Nigel Martyn from Crystal Palace for a then British record fee for a goalkeeper - £2.25 million.

Martyn was the first British keeper to break the million pound mark and the transfer is calculated by the TotallyMoney transfer index to be around £22 million in today’s market.

Even at that adjusted price, Leeds will pay almost double to bring James Trafford to the Whites.

For many Leeds fans, Nigel Martyn remains the club's greatest ever goalkeeper. And Martyn's acquisition had a transformative affect on that side, creating a strong foundation of Martyn, Lucas Radebe and Lee Bowyer.

A foundation that led that team to two European semi-finals.

Leeds' owners, 49ers Enterprises, will hope that this significant outlay on James Trafford will be the catalyst for a similar rise.

One of the missing pieces last season was a solid goalkeeper.

Trafford's last full season was in the Championship with Burnley where he broke basically every goalkeeping record in the second tier.

Conceding only 16 goals the entire season, Leeds’ new keeper had an 84.6% save percentage, prevented 12.58 goals, saved the 2 penalties he faced, made 88 saves and kept 29 clean sheets. [fotMOB]

Last season, Leeds had 10 score draws and 7 of their losses came from a single goal. Meaning that those 17 goals conceded, cost Leeds 27 points.

When Lucas Perri was dropped last season, he had the worst save percentage in the Premier League.

Trafford had the 2nd best save percentage of Premier League goalkeepers in all competitions (75.5%) with 5.8 prevented goals per xGoT. [Jonny Cooper – Opta].

If Leeds had Trafford last season, based on previous performance, it is very likely the goalkeeper would have made the difference in a significant number of those single-goal results, turning losses into draws and draws into wins.

Even if Leeds do not improve in any other aspect, if Trafford stays fit, he will likely be worth an additional 10-20 points ver the course of the season.

This is a stunning signing.

The most significant for a British goalkeeper in history, and the most significant goalkeeper signing for Leeds United in 30 years.

Wow.

[🇬🇧King 🇬🇧 @King0243_PJC]

Rupert Lowe’s blood purity test is so strict the King fails it.

Cornered on whether Charles is “white British” by the definition he loves quoting… and the bigot just collapses into stuttering evasion.

When the racism is too pure for the Crown itself, you’re not a patriot. Are you?

He got exposed by his own rules.

[Count Binface @CountBinface]

There now follows a party election broadcast by the Count Binface Party, And if I do say so myself, it's a banger. #VoteBinface #Clacton

[Kieran Maguire @KieranMaguire]

I’ve seen (and taught how to spot) some manipulated financial nonsense over the years, but Gianni’s masterplan to hand over world football to JP Morgan, Kuchner and Co takes this to a new dimension.

Comparing FIFA’s ‘average’ revenue over four years to other competitions that take place every year is ludicrous (and I know the Women’s WC is in the totals but as yet is not a major revenue earner). FIFA have over its whole history

The other competitions take place over many months whereas FIFA WC is just one. So comparing total revenue from each tournament is comparing 🍎 🍏 to 🦛 🦛

FIFA has 211 member countries and football a huge global fan base, whereas NFL is concentrated in US, therefore the $1 per fan per year compared to $52.8 is utter tosh. People in Haiti and Nepal earn far less than those in NYC so of course they spend less on football.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇺🇸 Trump's ballroom got a quiet half-billion-dollar deal

The White House handed Clark Construction up to $500 million to build the new East Wing ballroom, and never let anyone else bid for it.

The trick was simple. They ran it through the Executive Residence, the small office that usually just buys the White House furniture and art. It does not have to ask for competing bids or say what it spends, so the deal stayed in the dark.

Trump worked out some of the costs himself, and Clark walks away with tens of millions. The ballroom's price tag has nearly tripled along the way, from about $200 million to close to $600 million.

Half a billion in public money, one company, no one watching. This is the exact deal those bidding rules were written to stop.

Source: The Washington Post / Writer: Daniyal

[Sam @SamCKx]

The more I dig, the more I realise that Nigel Farage is literally done for. It's over for him. The £5 million bung is big enough to take the entire Reform movement down and possibly land Nigel in jail.

1) The fact the donation was made BEFORE Nigel was MP is absolutely irrelevant. Parliamentary Code of Conduct requires all receipts for the full 12 months before election. Nigel receiving his bung just a few days before he announced his candidacy makes it so much worse, not better.

2) "Category 5: Gifts and benefits from sources outside the UK - THRESHOLD FOR REGISTRATION Section 39. Members must register, subject to the paragraphs below, any gifts or benefits with a value of over £300 which they receive from a source outside the UK."

Nigel argues this was 'purely personal' but the Code refers to partners or families when it comes to personal gifts... this takes us to the next issue...

3) Christopher Harborne has a long track record of making SUBSTANTIAL political contributions to Nigel's parties, first to The Brexit Party, and later to Reform. He is a POLITICAL DONOR - any "gift" he made to Farage CANNOT be argued as personal or without political context due to this track record.

4) Using his platform as an MP, Nigel went on to promote 2 companies in which Christopher Harborne holds $ billions in stock - Nigel NEVER publicly endorsed or mentioned these companies prior to the "gift". Nigel also began actively pushing for policy that would directly interest Christopher Harborne and his business affairs. These were not interests that any could argue could possibly be of interest to his constituents - deregulation of crypto, and lowering of taxes on crypto gains. Nigel spent a substantial amount of time and effort pushing these policies.

It is beyond a doubt that this is the biggest breach of Parliamentary Code of Conduct rules in relation to donations in parliamentary history.

But even more concerning for Nigel will be that if it can be proven he was secretly incentivised to use his public office to push for policies to support a wealthy donor, then he should very likely face a criminal probe for corruption and bribery. I suspect Harborne might also be exposed to this. The United Kingdom and Thailand have a bilateral extradition treaty. Maximum prison sentences of up to 10 years for the offence.

This is not going to go away.

[Larry the Cat @Number10cat]

@reformparty_uk Cat check: Nigel Farage unsuccessfully stood for Parliament in the following constituencies
Eastleigh, Hampshire
Salisbury, Wiltshire
Bexhill & Battle, East Sussex
South Thanet, Kent
Bromley and Chislehurst, London
Buckingham, Buckinghamshire
South Thanet, Kent (again)

[Marina Purkiss @MarinaPurkiss]

Angela Rayner was dragged through every front page for weeks...

HMRC's verdict: NOT deliberate. NOT even careless.

Farage pockets £5 million and chooses not to declare it

So where's the wall-to-wall coverage?

Tell me this isn't a rigged game.

[The Semp @TheSemp]

@msvnssn @OccupyDemocrats

[Leeds All Over @LeedsAllOver]

😎It's matchday, so here's Anton Stach's Men In Black IG post.

#LUFC

[The Semp @TheSemp]

@elonmusk Fake news

[The Semp @TheSemp]

@johnrich Operation Sky Shield 🤪

[The Semp @TheSemp]

@dalepartridge Women shouldn't go anywhere near you

[Kieran Maguire @KieranMaguire]

@RupertLowe10 That’s odd, as the Fan Led Review which led to the legislation consulted football fans from all over the country…as opposed to millionaire and billionaire club owners…some of whom led their clubs into administration and worse.

[Brian O'Halloran 💙 @BrianCOHalloran]

📺
I know where I was
25 YEARS AGO
TONIGHT
At Kevin's house in NJ watching
"CLERKS The Animated Series"
Premiered on @abc
And although
The network aired episode 2 first
We still were excited to see our
Animated selves on TV
🐻
From the minds of
KEVIN SMITH & DAVID MANDEL
1 of 3

[Parody Nigel Farage @Parody_PM]

@BorisJohnson Says the man who gave us the biggest tax burden since the War, highest ever national debt, largest fall in living standards on record and committed the biggest act of self-harm in our history with Brexit. Time to shut the fuck up you shambling oaf.

[Feargal Sharkey @Feargal_Sharkey]

I see the @EnvAgency are up to their old tricks again.

They sit back and allowed, no licensed, three tonnes of uranium to be dumped into the River Ribble.

The Ribble by the way, and its estuary, are one of England's most heavily protected sites listed as a site of special scientific interest, a special protection area and a Ramsar site.

And the @EnvAgency does what exactly? Err, nothing!

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

This exchange 😱

Kemi Badenoch humiliates herself responding to Keir Starmer's statement on the improved agreement with the EU

Starmer then calls out her criticisms one by one

However small the improvement is compared to being in a Customs Union or the EU Single Market, credit should go to Labour for doing something and, amongst other things, improving trade with the EU, which a positive step for British business

[Jay Mewes @JayMewes]

Over 30 years of Jay and Silent Bob!