Companies sponsoring the Dutch national football team will not accompany the squad to the World Cup in Qatar at the end of the year, because of the human rights situation there, the Telegraaf reported on Thursday.

Main sponsor ING is among those not making the trip, and will not organise an advertising campaign around the event either, the paper said. Instead, the banking group will focus on the women’s European Cup in England this summer.

Supermarket group Albert Heijn is not sending staff to Qatar and is currently ‘looking into how we will celebrate the World Cup here in the Netherlands’, the paper said. Other sponsors KPN, lottery organisers Nederlandse Loterij and Bitvavo are also not sending delegations.

Last month, national coach Louis van Gaal described the decision to award the event to the Middle Eastern country as ‘ridiculous’ and driven purely by commercial motives.