If you’ve been online today, then you know that Alina Pash has pulled herself out of Eurovision 2022, saying that she doesn’t “want to be part of this dirty story” anymore. That was after it emerged that someone on her team had forged travel documents, meant to show she had travelled to Crimea legally in 2015.
Well now Ukraine’s broadcaster UA:PBC has responded. In their official statement, they apologise and make it clear they regret that “the representative of the artist acted irresponsibly” in her dealings with them.
They also stressed that they now have the right to choose from among the other Vidbir 2022 finalists for Eurovision.
You can read their statement in full below.
Ukraine: Broadcaster’s full statement on Alina Pash withdrawal
“Today, on 16 February, the organizing committee of the national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 held an extraordinary meeting where the decision to cease the participation of Alina Pash in the national selection was made. This is because of establishing the fact that the artist’s representative falsified a certificate provided to UA: PBC. The artist agreed with this decision of the organizing committee.”
“According to the rules of the national selection, UA: PBC has the right to terminate the participation of a participant in case of submission of false information.”
“We are very sorry that the representative of the artist acted irresponsibly.”
“UA: PBC is guided by the laws of Ukraine and the national selection rules only.”
“Under the rules, should UA: PBC cease the participation in the national selection of a participant decided/announced the winner of the selection, UA: PBC has the right to decide on the representative of Ukraine at the Contest from among the other finalists of the national selection.”
Will Kalush Orchestra sing at Eurovision 2022?
The question now is whether UA:PBC will select Kalush Orchestra with the song “Stefania”. As you’ll recall, the group won the televote at Vidbir 2022, but ultimately finished as runners-up after the jury placed them third.
Many fans have called on the broadcaster to allow Kalush Orchestra the chance at Eurovision — and it would seem the group is keen. You’ll recall that they asked for full transparency with the results following the show.
Kalesh to Torino please !
Hooray there is a chance for Roxlana now finally 🙂
Pick Eskimo Callboy, pretty sure the guys never went to Russia/Crimea
Shouldn’t they verify if their artists are eligible before allowing them to the competition? Why all this drama right after an artist is picked? Same with Maruv, now with Alina, too. It’s ridiculous…
Yes yes, I hear this BS every year. Aren’t you people tired already? Your favorite is your own taste, it doesn’t meant a song you don’t like can’t do well. It’s so childish to think that only your personal taste matters. It really doesn’t, millions of people watch this show and vote. Many of them have entirely different preference than you.
No the only right they have is to send the act the people voted for.. Nothing more, nothing less!!
I wonder if this will affect Ukraine’s eventual result. Then again, first time viewers likely won’t care much for the drama once a Ukrainian representative stands on stage in Turin in the end. They just hear the song for 3 minutes and see whether they like it or not. A LOT of Eurofans tend to forget the massive amount of people who DO watch ESC but don’t follow it ahead of the actual event.
no, it won’t. people already wanted kalush to go, and even if you look at their performance on youtube, you can already see it has twice the likes alina’s has
Most people only watch ESC on the night. They don’t know or care about which act has more YT views since they don’t follow it ahead of the final evening..
“we are sorry that the representative of the artist acted irresponsibly”
YOU ARE THE ONES WHO ACTED IRRESPONSIBLY AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED FOR HUMILIATING ALINA
Their sung is “stucked” in my head since saturday. I think they would make top 5 in Eurovision.
?
I was rooting for Kalush from the start but it doesn’t feel right if they ended up representing Ukraine.
UA:PBC should get special treatment in Hell.
Ukraine deserves the best broadcaster
Where was better ESC since 2017?
I think we can agree that last year in Rotterdam was amazing and better than Kyiv, no? Seeing the circumstances, they organized a great show with a big variety, nice stage and they showed a great diversity in the 4 presenters…
There was nothing wrong with the ESC in Kiyiv. In many ways I liked it better than many other editions of that decade.
I didn’t say that everything was wrong with Kyiv 🙂 I just believe that in terms of organizing and professionality, Kyiv might not be the best one (remember the problems prior the contest with a lot of people resigning, financial issues, the cringy hosts that were all just white men, …). Also the fact that the Russian participant was not allowed to enter Ukraine because of some stupid reasons added a political flavor to the contest even though ESC should somehow be apolitical. Apart from that, songs were good (but that’s not the responsibility of the host city) and interval… Read more »
Maybe it’s an unpopular opinion, but I think the 2017 contest was good with solid chosen songs and great interval acts. It’s just that the hosts were a bit cringy, but other than that, I enjoyed ESC 2017 a lot.
2019 is something I still find dumb, and yeah… Alina’s scenario is something I have no words for…
I find it so disrespectful to replace Alina just like that…
What do you mean just like that? Forged documents are kind of a big deal.
I hope Kalush orchestra
Kalush’s song is awful.
Three nights in Malta?
Just withdraw again for God sake
So disappointing, and this is worse than 2019 because we don’t get a meme out of it. Spravedlyvist’ dlia Aliny ta Maruva!
Shadows of forged documents is a great meme 😛
please just withdraw
germans or moscowites still able to withdraw, if you want to withdraw so much
You have the right to choose what the people chose
oh, my. Such Eurodrama – and,it’s only February!
Why is everyone obsessing over this, juries will kill it if this reach Eurovision
This is not bettet. But the jury gonna love this, its Ukraina. 0/10
it’s so much better than alina’s song, and it has top 5 potential. they were already the people’s favorite, and they still are if you look how many likes their performance garnered on youtube compared to alina’s
My guess is that “right to decide” is their codeword for “we need to decide if we are going to pick certain contestant who accused us of falsifying votes or if we’re going to be petty and pick someone else”
I kinda understand that Kalush Orchestra felt wronged if the selection is really mishandled in voting. However, if I’m not mistaken, a televote recount wouldn’t help them much. Ukraine, unlike France, Estonia or Italy doesn’t count the percentage, but only the order in which the songs received points. K.O. won the televote either way. Whether it’s by 1% or by 20% it wouldn’t change their points, no?
Whether it’s them, Wellboy, Roxolana or whoever, they’ll have a difficult task of taking the mantle.
They explicitly said that they suspected Alina was actually 3rd in televote and that the points were changed in order to make her win
Okay, this actually makes sense, if so. I hope that the broadcaster has answers for that.
I hope someday Ukraine is able to deal with their NF without firing up a drama out of every single detail.
Tbh I like Ukraine but they are ruled by kiddos it seems.
Also, if Kalush Orchestra is confirmed, I do believe Ukraine will struggle to qualify. Any other choice would be unfair as they were the 2nd though. I know some Spanish fans that would be panicking right now.
Plot Twist,
Maruv had planned to take a year off from touring, so no visits to the aggressor state are planned between now and May, her diary is free, should they ask! 😀
I think it’s because she’s now reportedly expecting a child in the coming weeks.
Congratulations to her.
Yeah, she actually announced her pregnancy on her socials yesterday 🙂
Ban Ukraine from Eurovision for a couple of years
lol who cares about your ranking. It’s the right thing to do. They’re the runners-up.
The right thing to do was to publicize the voting numbers straight away, which, apparently, Suspilne is afraid of to do even today. Why – remains the question for further speculations.
Dont worry, they will send Kalush. If not, people burn the Ukrainian TV.
ukraine should send roxolana it would stand out especially amongst the other pop songs. kalush is good but i don’t think the broadcaster is going to send them
I know it’s a long shot but how happy I’d be if by some miracle they send Roxolana!!
Sure, yeah, they have the right to do whatever they want, they can even skip another year and that’s perfectly legal. But it looks really bad, if we talk about reputation this delegation is rotten.
Did y’all not read the part that says Alina forged the papers and lied to the broadcaster? And y’all are mad she got consequences for her actions?
Ukraine shouldn’t withdraw they should choose Kalush or Roxolana
Kalush came 2nd. Wellboy 3rd.
Doesn’t make sense to bring up Roxolana.
The fact that she forged papers (still we need proofs that she is the one that did it because UAPBC statements clearly say it’s not her but one of her representative) has nothing to do with the main problem.
The TV chain should have checked all of this before the show if this was a problem for them.
I simply cant understand the broadcaster, why even hold Vidbir when they’re now choosing on their own? They had that sh*t with Maruv, they have it now with Alina Pash, just pick your freaking representant internally if you’re not able to check the national finalists before. It feels like they are forcing this drama.
Yes, we are all aware what’s happening in Ukraine and I do feel for you, but this is about Eurovision, this is about music not politics.
Maruv and Alina Pash are two opposite situations.
Maruv did not violate the selection rules, and the then government and the TV channel did not like her.
Alina broke the selection rules. But she was lobbied by the government and the TV channel. Therefore, people had to be indignant to make the channel adhered to its own rules for all participants in the selection equally. And to remove Alina from the selection. It was difficult because the TV channel acted in the interests of Alina, and even manipulated the voting.
Just send Verka to liven things up. On a serious note, in order to stop making a shamble of things, I would suggest Ukraine to internally choose their candidate over the next few years, giving time to reflect on their selection process and their credibility.
I do feel sorry for Alyna but I’m not sure we can blame the broadcaster for what looks like forged documents.. Alyna herself has parted company with her producer who did the forgery. I think the fairest thing to do is award to 2nd place, however having watched the whole thing, my fav by far was Wellboy, the song is fun, and representative of what is hot in Ukraine right now, and wasn’t that what Eurovision was about? A lot of my 20s/30s Ukrainian friends couldn’t understand how he only came third as it was. So personal preference although not… Read more »
I simply can’t root for Ukraine anymore after all this, no matter what they send. I just hope the broadcaster won’t give great artists such as Alina Pash false hope again
what should UAPBC do in such situation? pretend line nothing happened
They could fully vet anyone before doing a national selection. Or better yet, just go with an internal selection.
What happens if none other artists wants to go to Eurovision (like in 2019)?
Then Jamala goes.
Spoiler: It was her plan all along.
Jendrik goes
Tananai could represent Ukraine lol
Haha…. But we seriously need him at Eurovision. He was sooo underrated in Sanremo, maybe he’ll represent Switzerland??
How can artists accept to be part of THIS delegation after those baloney?
Unfortunately, Wellboy refused to be the representative of Ukraine at the competition. Kalush will go, obviously.
Oh, interesting! If Wellboy already refused, and Kalush also say no, then it is probably Roxolana (my fave!)
So to confirm, the statement “that the artist’s representative falsified a certificate provided to UA: PBC” means that someone on Alina’s team faked a document without her knowing and that is why she was removed?
So she claims she entered Crimea legally, that is still possible. She asked for a document from the border guard to prove she crossed legally, the border guard confirm she made this request. But the border guard don’t keep the documents after 5 years, so any record of her travel if it did happen as she said, would have been destroyed in 2020. So a member of her team forged a document saying she crossed legally, and the border guard have said that document is fake because we don;t have these records anymore even if it was true. Meaning it’s… Read more »
Lolita Zero it’s your chance!
I’m pretty sure we will see Lolita Zero at Eurovision some day.
Meh… just withdraw. We heard enough about Ukraine in this Eurovision. Come back when you’ll be ready to stop drama.
This feels like a provocation to Kalush, since they were (reasonably) complaining about the lack of transparency with the results. Though it can end badly for the broadcaster, because there’s a chance the other artists in the final would simply reject the invitation if they think both Alina and Kalush (or at least one of them) were mistreated or even that they don’t want to be dragged to this mess. That was just how Ukraine had to withdraw after MARUV refusing to sign their arbitrary contract.
Plot twist: They’ll send Jamala and her new song “Uncomfortable”
And juries at ESC will love it .-.
nvm, don’t give them ideas
Wellboy slay
ROXOLANA!!!
Even if Kalush makes it to Turin, there’s no guarantee that they won’t get booe when they first enter the stage. If Ukraine is prejudicial against their own artists, even if they just broke a law, they better begin selecting their songs internally next year. With that said, I still believe that Alina lying about the forging of the documents only worsened her condition. If she had already admitted her acts at first, she would at least get more support by her own people. Now she’s just a “traitor” and that’s really sad.
They won’t get boo’ed. Noone will know about anything that happened in Vidbir except the biggest eurofans. Hopefully it’s Kalush that get picked after all.
Calling it right now, it’ll be Wellboy just for the laughs.
This worked out perfectly for the committee. Now they’ll just pick whoever’s management company offers the biggest bribe under the table. Welcome to Ukraine.
And during all this mess I totally forgot that Ukraine is corruptive too, I’m done.