How Payet refused to talk to teammates for 8 weeks – West Ham’s Sullivan

West Ham United co-owner, David Sullivan, has claimed that departed midfielder, Dimitri Payet did not speak to his team-mates for up to eight weeks before he was allowed to leave the club.

Payet, who left the Hammers early in the week to rejoin Olympique Marseille, has been accused of cutting off all contacts with his colleagues.

The Frenchman returned to Marseille in a £25 million deal on Sunday  after refusing to lace his boot for Slaven Bilic’s side.

The club owner revealed that the player’s behaviour prior to his transfer request showed that something was wrong.

Sullivan told the BBC, “I think for the last six or eight weeks, he’s not been talking to anybody in the squad.

“He’s gone to the corner of a room for his meals and isolated himself from everybody.

“Before that, he was bubbly and happy, shakes everyone’s hand before the match.

“Either it was a tactic or something in his head had changed. The team wanted him out. The manager, with the greatest reluctance, wanted him out.

“And as much as we didn’t want him out, you can’t go against the consensus of the team and manager.”

Sullivan added that negotiations with Marseille about Payet transfer, were not smooth.

He added, “[Marseille] were very difficult to deal with.

“They’re lucky we accepted the £25m. I think he’s worth more than that. The player’s surrendered his January wages, which is another four or five hundred thousand so you get that there.

“There’s a little bit of dignity we got with that. That was a deal breaker to us. Our attitude was ‘you’ve refused to play’ – why should you get paid?”