Dimitri Payet forces acrimonious move from West Ham as he rejoins Marseille in £25m deal

France playmaker Dimitri Payet has re-joined his former club Marseille after forcing a move from West Ham – the Premier League club that helped to galvanize his career – just two days before the end of European soccer’s transfer window.

Marseille said on its website late Sunday night that 29-year-old Payet had signed a four-and-a-half year contract, with West Ham saying the fee was £25 million pounds (HK$244.2m).

Ambitious Marseille has been under new ownership since October, with money readily available to invest, and on Sunday afternoon Payet tweeted a photo of a private jet with the boarding door open along with the words “coming back home.”

He could play away to Metz in the French league on Friday night. Marseille is currently in sixth place and chasing a Europa League spot.

Payet played for Marseille for two seasons before joining West Ham in June 2015 and establishing himself as one of the stars of the Premier League.

But with his family reportedly unsettled in London, he told West Ham earlier this month that he wanted to leave – despite having signed a new contract through June 2021 just months after joining.

“The club would like to place on record its sincere disappointment that Dimitri Payet did not show the same commitment and respect to West Ham United that the club and fans showed him,” West Ham’s co-chairman David Sullivan said in a club statement. “Particularly when it rewarded him with a lucrative new five-and-half-year deal only last year.”