When the football match between Qatar and Ecuador kicked off on Sunday afternoon, it marked the opening of a championship that should never have been held in the desert country. We know this after the majority of the 24 old men who gave Qatar the championship as far back as 2010 have been jailed or suspended in various contexts for corruption.

Qatar was awarded the world’s biggest sporting event after widespread corruption.

In the wake of this shameful award, human rights organizations and international media such as The Guardian UK have exposed human rights abuses, exploitation of migrant workers, deaths, broken promises and even more corruption in Qatar.

Some of our readers are calling for a boycott of the championship. That they don’t want to see TV broadcasts from Qatar, or boycott is the way to go. This is a valid view.

This is also the view of everyone who is now impatient to see the world’s best footballers compete for the title of world’s best player. Or those who believe that mentioning Qatar’s dark side has contributed to improving and will continue to contribute to improving the conditions of women, homosexuals, migrant workers and other minorities in the country.

Dagbladet aims to cover all aspects of this championship, as we have done thoroughly since 2015.

Seven years ago, Dagbladet was among the first people in the world to visit the victims of a construction scandal in Qatar. We traveled to families in Nepal who lost their fathers and husbands in work accidents and we documented the exploitation of these migrant workers in the World Cup facility where we will now watch football.

The “Football scandal” series of articles shocked Norway and led, among other things, to demands from soccer president Yngve Hallèn that Qatar should forfeit the championship if things did not change.

There is little indication that the change has taken place. Nevertheless, both Dagbladet and other critical journalism have put enormous pressure on the Qatari authorities and the international football association, FIFA.

Never before has a soccer World Cup been exposed to more critical journalism than it is today. And we in Dagbladet will continue throughout the championship.

The soccer World Cup itself is a major international event. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen and we can’t opt ​​out of the sporting side of the championship.

Dagbladet will cover toilets in Qatar in the usual way on all Dagbladet surfaces and channels. We will have a World Cup studio on dbtv, live service during all matches, match issues, reactions, yes, everything that usually happens with a football World Cup.

And then we’ll have another story. The story of how Qatar has spent a fortune to buy this championship, but also considerable influence in international football through its ownership in Paris Saint-Germain and major sponsorship deals with other top European clubs.

We will be telling the stories of some of the survivors and victims of the World Cup, and we will be asking FIFA critical questions in Qatar. In short, we’ll be giving you more journalism on and around the World Cup in football than we ever did.

Here you can read all Dagbladet stories about Qatar WC.