Pay up for Payet

West Ham tell Marseille they can have their ex-player for 30m £

LONDON: West Ham are demanding £30mil (RM162mil) from Marseille for outcast Dimitri Payet.

But the on-strike French star only wants a switch back to the Ligue 1 club for family reasons.

Hammers joint-chairman David Sullivan met with representatives from Payet’s former club on Monday but flatly rejected an improved offer of £22mil (RM119mil) for his rebel midfielder.

The club would prefer Payet to apologise to supporters instead and then return to first-team training and play for West Ham to draw a line under the whole saga.

Sullivan is determined to play hardball over Payet who told Hammers boss Slaven Bilic last week that he wanted a return to France.

Marseille followed that up with an initial bid of £20mil (RM108mil) which was turned down on Friday.

Payet is not training with the first team at the moment and will continue to work with the Under23 squad while he still chases a move out of the club.

Hammers supremo Sullivan is taking a tough stance and refusing to be bullied into a quick sale and is determined the player respects the terms of his £125,000-a-week ( RM677,000) contract which he signed only a year ago.

Sullivan is braced for a third bid from Marseille later this week but declared publicly at the weekend that he is under no pressure to offload Payet for financial reasons and is furious that the club’s marquee player wants out halfway through a tough season for the club.

West Ham won 3- 0 in his absence on Saturday to climb to 12th in the English Premier League and Payet is now public enemy No. 1 with the fans.

Payet’s wife has moved back to France as her husband tries to force a transfer.

His wife Ludivine has also made it clear her future is not in London.

A return to Marseille however does not make much sense since Payet has flirted with talk of a move to a bigger club and many feel his former team would be a step backwards.

No other “big club” in Europe has shown any interest which is good news for Marseille but the Hammers will not settle for anything less than £30mil. — The Sun, London