Marseille agree contract with Payet

French newspaper L’Equipe are carrying a front page headline that Marseille have reached a contract agreement with Dimi Payet and his advisors to re-join his former team. The report says it is now up to Marseille to agree a transfer fee with West Ham.

Payet has been privately citing personal reasons for wanting to return to France and unconfirmed reports reached ClaretandHugh this evening that his family have already returned to France.

Marseille sold Payet to West Ham for £10.7m in 2015 and they have thought to have offered £19.1m plus a £2.5m Champions league bonus. The French Ligue 1 side are rumoured to be reluctantly prepared to increase their offer up to £3om but West Ham will refuse to sell their star player on the cheap. If the Hammers cannot change the mind of the 29 year old French man they will seek to cash in but will want bids closer to £4om for them to reverse their decision to make Payet play with the Under 23 squad for the remainder of the season.

Clearly Payet has no permission to speak to Marseille at this time from the club so whether this is fake news as Donald Trump would call it or the latest act of defiance from the player time will only tell.