Marseille sign forward from West Ham

The French club paid £25million to re-sign their former player on a four-and-a-half year deal, with the option of a further year.

Payet first played for Marseille between 2013 and 2015 before joining Premier League side West Ham.

The France international made an instant impact at West Ham scoring 12 goals in 38 appearances for the club.

His form dipped this season before he made a request to leave West Ham in the January transfer window.

The 27-year-old refused to train and play for West Ham, requesting to leave the club and was sent banished from the first team.

West Ham’s chairman David Sullivan in a statement released on Sunday, January 29 confirmed that the playmaker has joined Marseille and expressed disappointment in the conduct of the player.

“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, particularly when it rewarded him with a lucrative new five-and-half-year deal only last year,” Sullivan said.

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“I would like to make it clear that we have no financial need to sell our best players and that the decision to allow Payet to leave was in accordance with the wishes of the manager and the interests of squad unity.

“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.

“I am confident that with the quality of the players we have brought in during January already, the squad will be stronger at the end of this transfer window than it was at the start.

"We now look forward to building on our recent good run of form with five league wins in the last seven matches as we focus on continuing our rise up the Premier League table.”