{"id":484526,"date":"2026-06-19T00:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T00:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/484526\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T00:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T00:15:10","slug":"wellington-phoenix-confirm-release-of-tim-payne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/484526\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellington Phoenix confirm release of Tim Payne"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Wellington Phoenix have confirmed the release of defender Tim Payne.<\/p>\n

The Phoenix have accepted an undisclosed fee from Club Olimpia for the All Whites fullback to join the 48-time Paraguay champions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Payne played in the All Whites opening World Cup game against Iran and not long after reports surfaced that he was heading to<\/a> South America.<\/p>\n

“This wasn’t an easy decision,” Payne said in a Phoenix statement.<\/p>\n

The transfer is subject to Payne completing a medical following the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Payne had already hit the headlines before the World Cup when his social media sky-rocketed after he was publicised by<\/a> an Argentinean influencer.<\/p>\n

Payne leaves the Phoenix as the seventh most capped player in club history, having made 149 A-League appearances since arriving in Wellington in 2019.<\/p>\n

“I’ve always pushed myself to be the best footballer I can be. The opportunity to test myself at the very top of South American football in the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana is one of the most incredible opportunities I could have asked for as a professional.”<\/p>\n

“Opportunities like this don’t come around often, and we’re not taking it for granted.”<\/p>\n

The All Whites play Egypt in their second World Cup game on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wellington Phoenix have confirmed the release of defender Tim Payne. The Phoenix have accepted an undisclosed fee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-484526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}