Dimitri Payet

By Craig · Published 31 October 2026

For one season, Dimitri Payet was the best thing in the Premier League to watch. He gave West Ham's last year at the Boleyn Ground the send-off it deserved, then broke their hearts a year and a half after he arrived.

Clubs

Nantes, Saint-Étienne, Lille, Marseille, West Ham United, Marseille, Vasco da Gama

Premier League

46 appearances, 11 goals (West Ham, 2015 to 2017)

Honours

PFA Team of the Year 2015/16, West Ham Hammer of the Year 2015/16, Euro 2016 runner-up

International

France, 38 caps, 8 goals

Fantasy price

£10.5m in 2015/16

How he arrived

West Ham signed Payet from Marseille on 26 June 2015, for a reported £10.7m on a five-year contract. He took no time to settle. On the opening day he set up Cheikhou Kouyaté's goal in a win at Arsenal, and he scored on his home debut against Leicester. He was involved in eight goals in his first nine league games.

By October he had his own song. West Ham fans first sang "We've got Payet", to the tune of "Achy Breaky Heart", at Selhurst Park on 17 October 2015, in a 3-1 win where he scored the third. It compared him favourably with Zidane, and that season nobody in claret and blue thought that was a stretch.

The moment: Manchester United, 13 March 2016

An FA Cup quarter-final at Old Trafford, 68 minutes gone, a free kick about 30 yards out. Payet curled it over the wall and into the top corner, and David de Gea could only watch. Anthony Martial equalised late to force a replay, but nobody remembers the replay.

It wasn't a one-off. He had already scored a free kick at Bournemouth in January, and a month after Old Trafford he beat Crystal Palace at the Boleyn Ground with another, over a seven-man wall, with snow falling. That spring, every foul within 35 yards of goal felt like a penalty.

Why he left West Ham

The season ended with 62 points, West Ham's best Premier League total, plus a place in the PFA Team of the Year, a place on the shortlist for Player of the Year, and Hammer of the Year. That summer he was one of the stars of Euro 2016, scoring France's 89th-minute winner against Romania in the opening game. West Ham also gave him a new five-year contract in 2016.

It came apart within months of the move to the London Stadium. In December 2016 he told French radio he missed the Champions League and wasn't closing the door on other options. West Ham turned down a £19m bid from Marseille. On 12 January 2017 Slaven Bilić told a press conference: "He is refusing to play for us." On 29 January West Ham agreed to sell him back to Marseille for £25m, a club record.

Why the streets won't forget

How it ended still stings at West Ham, but it never erased what came before. For a few months Payet made the Boleyn Ground's last season feel like a party, and he made free kicks an event again. The club put him at number 34 in its 50 Greatest Hammers in 2018, and said his skill "can never be forgotten". That's the right verdict: one brilliant season, one bad exit, and a song nobody at West Ham has forgotten.

Where is he now

Back at Marseille he had six and a half more seasons. He reached the 2018 Europa League final, but went off injured in the first half as Atlético Madrid won 3-0. He left Marseille in July 2023 and joined Vasco da Gama in Brazil, where his contract was ended by mutual consent in June 2025.

He announced his retirement in March 2026, on the eve of his 39th birthday, looking back on a career that started on Réunion: "I come from an island and my dream was to become a pro."

Which seasons can you draft him in?

One. He left in January 2017, and the game's 2016/17 squads don't include him.

Want him taking your free kicks? Pick him in 2015/16 for £10.5m.