Barcelona star Ousmane Dembele booed by own fans for every touch in Napoli draw

Barcelona forward Ousmane Dembele was booed by his own fans every time he touched the ball against Napoli in the Europa League on Thursday.

The Frenchman's torrid spell at the Nou Camp – which has been plagued by injuries and mishaps – appears to have reached its nadir with supporters furious with the 24-year-old for recently rejecting a contract extension.

He was greeted by a cacophony of jeers as he came off the bench to make his first appearance for the club in 2022, during what was Barcelona's first Europa League match since 2004, and the bitter home crowd refused to let up all night.

Dembele entered the fray with 25 minutes remaining, shortly after Ferran Torres had cancelled out Piotr Zielinski's opener for the visitors, though perhaps unsurprisingly he failed to make any significant impact on the game.

Dembele's contract expires in the summer, meaning he'll be able to leave the club on a free transfer at the end of the season.

Desperate to avoid that, Barcelona chiefs have been trying to tie the former Dortmund man down to a new deal all season and even insisted the player would be sold in January if he failed to agree an extension by then – but no such move materialised.

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He was linked to Chelsea, which would have seen him reunited with former manager Thomas Tuchel, as well as to Paris Saint Germain, but Dembele opted to stay put and see out the remainder of his £210,000-a-week contract in Catalonia.

Barcelona paid a whopping £130 million to bring Dembele to the club in 2017 following an impressive breakthrough season in the Bundesliga, though he's spent just as much time on the treatment table since then as on the pitch.

In just his first league start he was ruled for four months after picking up a hamstring injury, and crocked himself again days after returning the following January.

He injured his hamstring again a year later, forcing him to miss the majority of the 2019/20 season.

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