Marseille offer Payet new contract to ward off West Ham

Marseille have offered Dimitri Payet an improved contract in the hope they can deflect West Ham United’s interest in the France international forward.

The London club submitted an improved £14m offer to the French side over the weekend, their initial bid, which would have amounted to nearer £12m, having been knocked back, and were confident a deal would be struck for a player who has been capped 15 times by Les Bleus. Indeed, they had received encouragement from Payet’s camp to pursue a deal.

However, the Marseille coach Marcelo Bielsa had asked the club’s hierarchy to offer the 28-year-old new terms to stay at Stade Vélodrome, and initial talks took place on Monday between his agent and the club’s president, Vincent Labrune, over a two-year extension to 2019. Labrune will report back to the major shareholder, Margarita Louis-Dreyfus, who is expected to confirm within a week whether the contract offer will be formalised.

But, while the financial terms proposed will be greatly improved, they will still not match those put forward by West Ham. The ambitious Premier League club are willing to offer a five-year contract, with an option for a further season, worth a basic £70,000-a-week as they seek to add to Slaven Bilic’s squad ahead of the final season at the Boleyn Ground.

Payet, an £8m signing from Lille in 2013, is one of a number of players who was due to take an automatic drop in wages at Marseille following the team’s failure to qualify for the Champions League. Others have already moved on, with Andre Ayew joining Swansea and André-Pierre Gignac having moved to the Mexican club, Tigres.


By Dominic Fifield / Guardian