In May, the Maltese government announced it would conduct an audit of Eurovision 2021 spending by broadcaster TVM and the Malta Tourism Authority. Now minister Carmelo Abela has confirmed the investigation has found no irregularities.
The audit was instigated after reports in the Maltese media claiming that local broadcaster PBS invested public money on betting agencies.
The Times of Malta previously reported that an insider claimed that foreign nationals had been given money to bet on Malta. As a result of this, the insider claimed that Malta’s Eurovision 2021 bid rose to the top of the odds. This fact helped to advertise the Maltese entry as the “bookies’ favourite”.
It was also claimed that the Maltese Tourism Authority had gone over budget through spending on social media and sponsored content in media around Europe that promoted both Destiny’s entry for Eurovision 2021 and Malta as a tourist destination.
More than €650,000 was spent promoting “Je me casse” — €350,000 spent by the Malta Tourism Authority and €300,000 by the Public Broadcasting Services.
Maltese audit results will not be made public
The Malta Independent newspaper reports that the official audit did not find that money was spend on trying to manipulate the betting odds. Carmelo Abela told the newspaper, “The audit found that both the MTA and PBS worked within their own respective procurement regulations.”
The report itself has not been published. Abela told the Independent that there were restrictions on the publication of the report. But he claimed that both PBS and the MTA had followed “established respective procedures for procurement” relating to their Eurovision work.
This isn’t the first time Malta’s broadcaster has been criticised for their Eurovision spending. In 2016, PBS were singled out for spending an estimated €1 million on Ira Losco’s “Walk on Water” entry. This included €80,000 for Ira’s holographic coat and the pricey digital projection system. This staging element was heavily promoted but eventually dropped from the performance after it did not function as expected.
Despite Malta’s strong desire to win Eurovision — and the broadcaster’s deep pockets — a Maltese act has yet to take home the crystal microphone. Ira Losco placed 12th in the grand final, while Destiny finished seventh, both acts doing far better with the juries than with televoters. However, Destiny’s seven place finish remains Malta’s best Eurovision result in 16 years.
What do you think? Does a broadcaster need to spend big to win Eurovision? Should the EBU put a cap on spending? Tell us your thoughts below!
OMG this is the best unintended pun ever, I can’t help laughing! 😀
> the govt finds “no irregularities”
> the report won’t be made public
idk sounds pretty sus
Ahhh, ahahaha
the EBU hates malta anyway. they screwed the running order after winning a semi
Why don’t they make their public? This will raise more doubts that ever..
Not releasing the report publicly is a little bit suspicious.
As a citizen of Malta, this does not surprise me at all. Corruption has found its way in all sectors and industries in Malta unfortunately. We definitely did not deserve to win this year, yet the broadcaster tried to push for it, only for it to backfire massively. Granted we did not merit to be placed 6th in the running order after winning the semi with quite a wide margin, and we did not merit getting less televotes than entries like Moldova, BUT unless PBS changes its methods and focuses more on the act, rather than on the PR, we… Read more »
You literally had Kewkba to pull something out of the box, but the extremely boring Fabrizio’s sister won the National Final…
I feel sorry for our Maltese broadcaster. Since we won Junior Eurovision twice the hope of winning the Eurovision has been boosted. PBS did its best in 2016, 2019 and 2021 and when they knew that it’s hard for us when it comes to televoting, PBS came out of their comfort zone to try to attract at least 100 televoting points by promoting our entries but we were unsuccessful the 3 times. But after all I personally feel that the EBU does not want Malta to win and this is evident in the fact that Destiny was placed so early… Read more »
Destiny finished highest of all the artists that had nothing to do with the writing of their song. If there is one thing we can conclude from recent years is that to be successful in Eurovision you have be involved in the song you perform on stage. So stop buying songs from composing factories and show some originality for once.
It did not get Lesley Roy very far
As an Irishman I’ll tell you Lesley’s lack of a singing voice on the night, insane staging and basic song deserved its last place… I can tell she had involvement in our 2021 jesc entry cuz it sounds like Story Of My Life but in Irish.
Lesley is a lovely girl, talented, but she needs to stay far away from the bombastic, performance based Eurovision and stick to the acoustic gigs.
Malta has been robbed many times and I can’t get why it hasn’t won yet. Not to mention the fact that it’s always unfairly underrated by the televoting, but almost nobody admits that. Whenever the juries do something wrong, everyone is willing to critize them; but when it’s the televoters: “oh, nevermind”
looool pls dont embarrass yourself
they dont champion things yet championed a country winning just so that it could save its economy post covid?
i mean it’s their own money they threw down the drain so if they don’t care, good for them !
Exactly…. they got 47 televotes for all their antics.
If there wasn’t anything wrong with the things that MTA and PBS had done, why hide the results of this investigation? Personally I do find Malta being a bit of a cheater of some sort these days like Azerbaijan. I won’t be voting for either one in 2022, just because of the way they treat the contest.
They can buy publicity and votes, but the respect for these countries is all gone.
I hope Destiny will represent Malta again. She has an amazing voice and so much talent and deserved better than being in the middle of all this mess. Give her a strong song and Malta’s first ESC victory might be on its way.
I have not trusted Malta since they gave Azerbaijan 12 points four years in a row.
Sorry.
I have not trusted your country since you gave your neighboring countries 12 points for years and years.
Sorry.
Wait till you see their voting record from the days of 100% jury vote, suspiciously the countries to which they gave high marks also gave them high marks.
Also, see Sigga’s testimony here at 7:15 >https://youtu.be/CKfIJPiJtu8?t=435
Sure Jan, we believe you (sarcasm).
It’s quite clear now why Malta is a bookies favourite, yet fails big time in televoting (see 2016, 2019, 2021). I think Destiny had good chances but the staging/outfit was messy and her voice was too high pitched at some parts of the show.
and wow did they really pay 80k for Ira’s holographic coat that we never seen? this is on a whole different level of incompetence…
Ira is humble compared with Destiny. But it’s not her fault (Destiny) she’s been surrounded by yes men her entire life.
Well they would say that wouldn’t they? MTV is state owned. Admitting to it would open a big can of worms regarding tax payers money. It is so obviously happening. The outsourcing of everything to Sweden The payment of people to put odds on Malta so they’d rise in the odds Paying people like Cascada to hype up the act Destiny was everywhere!! The suddenly absent accounts from here who’d attack anyone and call them Malta “haters” (hate that word) just because they weren’t fans of the song. We’ll see if Mario/Ellen or whatever they’re going to be called suddenly… Read more »
Yet if RTE did this you would be getting the flags out. Be consistent.
Not even
If you actually read my comments about RTE you’d know very well that I wouldn’t.
Be aware.
sure sweetheart , sure you didn’t cheat !
how persuasive
annoying comments incoming about how “they’re lying” and “they’re corrupt” in 3, 2, 1:
Well… we all know they are
and thus my point is proven
Why is the truth annoying?
People are entitled to question something which is so obviously corrupt.
They’re hardly going to admit it and people should be allowed share their opinion about it.
And I’m gonna share my opinion right back: if any other country sent that song you all would have been eating it up. If any other singer (read: someone that isn’t black) was performing it, you would have eaten it up. The connection between racist vitriol that Destiny received coupled with the constant accusations of corruption is absolutely not lost on me.
Destiny was not the only black singer in ESC, but Sweden, Israel or the Netherlands were never accused of shady behavior. Don’t play the racism card unnecessarily, it cheapens the struggle of many oppressed people.
Nonsense
To tar us all as racist without any evidence or proof to back that up is downright disgusting and very cheap.
And no I wouldn’t have been eating it up and no it’s not because it’s Malta, not because it’s Destiny, Not because she’s black just for the plain and simple reason that the song was pretty bad and unoriginal.
‘Without any evidence or proof to back that up’ I find it downright disgusting and very cheap that not only are you blind to the hate she received on this very website for her skin colour and for being plus sized, but on the wider internet as a whole. You lack nuance, thinking that the accusations of corruption and the abuse Destiny received were not correlated in some way. There have been countries that have manipulated the odds before, including Azerbaijan and Russia, and yet I’ve never seen this amount of hate go to any of their entries. In fact,… Read more »
All I saw on this website was people saying they didn’t like the song and being subsequently attacked by probably paid accounts, ripping into them and accusing them of all sorts. It was those accounts who where jumping on the black and plus sized arguments. Eurovision has had black and plus sized acts for years! If you remember in 2020 (when destiny was coming to the contest with something true to her) she was actually being lauded on this site, with everyone, including myself calling her a winner in 2020. So your argument that she’s this poor victim of bullying… Read more »
We clearly have a very different opinion here and I don’t really want to continue an argument that isn’t going to be resolved. But I think you are being very blind to some of the comments you can see in past articles about Malta. And I think that arguing that she isn’t a victim of bullying is tone-deaf at best.
Yeah let’s see what bandwagon you’s all come and jump on in 2022.
Heaven forbid someone ends up not liking the song, they’ll be outright cancelled and accused of every ism in the dictionary.
I think the upvotes for this comment show a big part of the reason Destiny didn’t do well. Not necessarily because of race, more that some people are just allergic to anything that they see as “woke” …and unfortunately that is how they regard a feminist song like Je Me Casse.
Racism is definitely a problem, though. Zero points for Jeangu should convince anybody of that.
Oh it is.
But that’s not why Destiny didn’t win and that’s not why people didn’t like JMC.
That’s all I’m saying.
Zero points for Jeangu were simply a matter of people not liking the song. Germany, UK and Spain also got zero points – was that because of a racism towards white people?
We really need to stop this “if someone who’s black doesn’t do well, it’s racism” thing.
Nobody said that, but thank you for agreeing with me – no, they did not like the song about the end of racism.
I call BS. Three white artists also received zero points.
Yeah, thanks, I know that. Their songs were not nearly as good and not about the end of black oppression.
Yes. It’s the lyrics they didn’t vote for. They don’t want the birth of a new anything, they want everything to stay the same. Go backwards even.
Rule number one, you need to be able to appreciate music.
You’re the first to be hateful towards others and towards specific countries here on wiwibloggs, let me laugh, you are a big part of the hatred here so come on be consistent, assume, complain for the others receiving hatred then too, arff no you can’t because you are part of this. So think a little before complaining. And the racism card to try to defend something that is obvious you can’ t do worst. And unfortunately for you I’m a big fan of Destiny and I keep listening je me casse, all of my love, not my soul, and some… Read more »
Oh nooo, not the race card. LoL
Kinda pathetic if you ask me…