Leeds United have signed defender Junior Firpo on a four-year deal from La Liga giants Barcelona for an undisclosed fee, the Premier League club announced on Tuesday.
The Press Association reported that Leeds paid around £12.8 million ($17.73 m) for the 24-year-old.
"The Whites have beaten off competition from a number of clubs to secure the services of the 24-year-old, who joins from Spanish outfit FC Barcelona for an undisclosed fee," Leeds said in a statement.
"Following a period of quarantine and completion of his medical, the full-back signed a four-year deal at Elland Road, running until the summer of 2025."
The Dominican Republic-born player arrived in the city last week and had his medical on Monday after spending five days in quarantine.
Firpo made his mark at Real Betis before moving to Barca on a five-year contract in 2019. He played 41 times for the Catalan side in the last two campaigns, helping them win the Copa Del Rey last season.
Firpo is Leeds' third signing of the summer after turning Jack Harrison's loan spell from Manchester City into a permanent deal and picking up teenage winger Amari Miller from Birmingham last week.
Leeds are looking to strengthen their squad after Ezgjan Alioski left the club on Monday at the end of his contract following a four-year spell.
The club finished ninth in the Premier League last season and begin the new season away to Manchester United at Old Trafford on August 14.
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The BIO
Favourite piece of music: Verdi’s Requiem. It’s awe-inspiring.
Biggest inspiration: My father, as I grew up in a house where music was constantly played on a wind-up gramophone. I had amazing music teachers in primary and secondary school who inspired me to take my music further. They encouraged me to take up music as a profession and I follow in their footsteps, encouraging others to do the same.
Favourite book: Ian McEwan’s Atonement – the ending alone knocked me for six.
Favourite holiday destination: Italy - music and opera is so much part of the life there. I love it.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
