Dimitri Payet was a one-of-a-kind player - and he's still strutting his stuff in South America after leaving the Premier League in almost one decade ago
18:00, 30 Mar 2025
Dimitri Payet of Vasco da Gama celebrates after a Brasileirao 2024 match between Vasco and Fluminense at Estadio Olimpico Nilton Santos on August 10, 2024 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Dimitri Payet is still playing professional football(Image: Getty Images)
There were few players that caught the Premier League's imagination quite like Dimitri Payet. The flash-footed Frenchman dazzled defenders after rocking up in East London.
He would score free-kicks and then nutmeg your favourite defender without so much of an apology.
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Even when Manchester United came calling, Payet turned them down - and the Frenchman, who turned 38 on Sunday (March 30), said: "I'm not someone who lives with regrets," Payet said, appearing on RMC Sport show Le Vestiaire.
"I made a choice, which was not just related to football but it was to family, to come back to Marseille.
"There were other clubs, big clubs. There were Manchester United and others. It was a personal and family choice. I think it was the best for me and my family."
Dimitri Payet of Vasco controls the ball during a Brasileirao 2024 match between Flamengo and Vasco at Maracana Stadium on September 15, 2024 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Dimitri Payet turned down a move to Man Utd(Image: Getty Images)
Payet left Marseille in the summer of 2023 when he, alongside club president Pablo Longoria, announced during a press conference their mutual agreement he would depart as a free agent.
Two weeks later, he would move to Brazil with Vasco da Gama. And he's still strutting his stuff in South America, turning out in the recent state championship.
Opening up on his time in the Premier League, Payet said: "Sure, the Premier League helped me to realise a dream, I suppose.
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"To play in the Premier League and to play in England because everyone dreams about playing here, particularly now when you look at the teams who are playing in the Premier League, it is getting stronger and stronger and a really tough league to play in.
“I spent 18 months full of emotions, excitement after Euro 2016 but no I don’t have any regrets. It was a choice I made, a personal choice and a family-based choice as well.
"Since I left West Ham I have stayed at Marseille, I haven’t gone to any other club and don’t intend on going to any other club, so it wasn’t leaving for the sake of leaving.
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“It was a personal decision, a family decision and yeah, it was a pretty brutal break I suppose when I left, that’s true, but I hope over the course of the years West Ham fans have come to understand why I left, I would certainly like and hope to think that.”