Dimitri Payet forces acrimonious move from West Ham as he rejoins Marseille in £25m deal
French playmaker re-joins his former club after forcing a move just two days before the end of European soccer’s transfer window
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.
West Ham rejected two bids for the midfielder before finally accepting a third. The club has already signed a replacement for Payet in Robert Snodgrass, the Scotland international who joined from Hull.
Payet scored several spectacular free kicks last season as West Ham finished seventh. His skill and trickery caught the eye throughout the Premier League campaign and earned him a recall to the France team. He scored three goals in last year’s European Championship, where France reached the final.
But three weeks ago, he told West Ham manager Slaven Bilic by phone that he wanted to leave and the club said he refused to play.
Bilic said at the time the club would stand firm and not sell him, but West Ham eventually relented.
“The decision to allow Payet to leave was in accordance with the wishes of the manager and the interests of squad unity,” Sullivan said. “To be frank, my board and I would have preferred for him to have stayed in order to make an example of him, as no player is bigger than the club.”
While one of the Premier League’s finest players last season, Payet’s eagerness to return to France echoes the reluctance he showed in moving to England in the first place.
At the time of his transfer to West Ham, he said he was unhappy to be sold and wanted to stay at Marseilles.
Now he is poised to return to the team he never wanted to leave, and one which seems a more ambitious club than when he left.
Marseille has been bought by American businessman Frank McCourt – the former owner of baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers – who has pledged to invest €200m over the next four years.
Veteran leftback Patrice Evra, who linked up with Payet on the left flank for France at Euro 2016, joined Marseille from Italian champion Juventus last week.