Reactions to the Eurovision 2022 voting scandal are coming thick and fast following Thursday’s statement from the European Broadcasting Union. In that statement the EBU demonstrated an “irregular voting pattern” among six countries — Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino. The tables supplied by the EBU showed that these six countries all ranked each other highly. But if you removed them from the calculation, they did collectively much poorer. It was, the EBU said, an “unprecedented” love-in. 

Well San Marino Radio & Television (SMRTV) isn’t happy. They’ve shared a press release — through a series of tweets — which call the EBU “authoritarian” and which question why all of their jury points in the second semi-final were given to Sweden and Australia, and why their 12 points in the grand final were given to Spain rather than Italy. 

We’re going to embed the Tweets and also type them out afterwards — just in case anything gets deleted on social media.

 

San Marino TV responds to EBU statement on national juries cheating at Eurovision 2022

– PRESS RELEASE –

EBU changes the vote of San Marino which had given 12 points to Italy As for the EBU press release on the alleged voting irregularities that would have occurred during the Eurovision just ended, San Marino RTV specifies that it has always remained in

1/8

-contact with EBU and considered EBU the only interlocutor until yesterday’s release in the late afternoon. The statement was not shared despite the fact that RTV – and the other 5 countries involved – are active members of the consortium. It is important to underline this

2/8

-because the way in which EBU has moved in this affair seems in our opinion a bit authoritarian rather than inspired by the associations that instead guide and regulate the relations between EBU members. We have already pointed out to EBU our disappointment with the way and

3/8

we are not referring to just the press release that has just come out. When asked if EBU believed the suspicions of voting irregularities to be 100% founded, the answer was no.

4/8

When asked if EBU had noticed that a group of countries in the second semifinal would apparently have exchanged 12, 10, 8, 7 and 6, the answer was no.

5/8

When asked why the canceled votes of San Marino and the other 5 suspected countries were all given to Sweden (who were given 72 points) and Australia (60 points for her) the answer was because “they had the best songs. “.

6/8

Nothing makes us think our jurors voted for something they didn’t like. Their – and ours – 12 to Italy was replaced by EBU with a 12 to Spain. We asked how this new vote was “calculated” but we have not been given a precise answer.

7/8

We know Eurovision and have been collaborating with them for years, we continue to believe in institutions and in the competition and we cheer for the best, even if it doesn’t always have the best song.

SAN MARINO RTV

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As previously explained, the EBU replaced the jury votes from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Romania, San Marino and Poland with what it calls a “substitute aggregated result for each country.” It did this both for Semi-Final 2 and the grand final. 

This is calculated based on the results of other countries with similar voting records. These voting records correspond to the “pots” that the EBU devised for the semi-final allocation draw. As you can see below, San Marino’s points were decided based on how Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Bulgaria and Portugal voted. 

During the second semi-final, all six of the countries involved in the scandal had their points awarded to Sweden.

In the grand final, San Marino’s 12 points (from the jury) went to Spain. Azerbaijan and Georgia’s went to the United Kingdom. Poland and Romania’s went to Ukraine. Montenegro’s went to Serbia.

Pot 1

  • Albania
  • Croatia
  • Montenegro
  • North Macedonia
  • Serbia
  • Slovenia

Pot 3

  • Armenia
  • Azerbaijan
  • Georgia
  • Israel
  • Russia
  • Ukraine

Pot 4

  • Cyprus
  • Greece
  • Malta
  • Bulgaria
  • Portugal
  • San Marino

Pot 5

  • Estonia
  • Lithuania
  • Latvia
  • Moldova
  • Poland
  • Romania

161 Comments
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Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago

Måneskin’s first ful

Mabel
Mabel
1 year ago

How about a group of semis tied to countries geography to Europe. Then these countries can neighbour vote all they want. Let the big 5 also go in the semis as it is such a disadvantage and against the spirit of a fair competition to go straight to the final.

CyxCy
CyxCy
1 year ago

Fortunately there is the televote to restore some order and justice in all this. Ukraine won with heart, the song of the United Kingdom was brilliant, that of Sweden touching, that of Serbia intelligent… Even if I still don’t understand the slap that Germany took, and how certain songs could have been praised to the point of reaching the top 10 with lyrics that fit on a post-it note and low-end music. For France, I accept the sentence, we knew it was a risky bet to present a song in Breton rather than in French. Ah yes, we don’t need… Read more »

Kieran Edmunds
Kieran Edmunds
1 year ago

Watch Sweden host in 2023 because of the EBU bias towards them even though they have hosted 2 times in 10 years and Spain and UK who are big 5 and top 3 this year haven’t in this millennium

Jonkonfui
Jonkonfui
1 year ago

But why San Marino spokeswoman announced ‘their’ votes herself and with other countries it was the Ebu president?

Dida
Dida
1 year ago

If all 6 countries withdraw, there may be a signal for the EBU to stop treating double standard voting. Punishing those 6, but allowing Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland and also Greece-Cyprus and Serbia-Montenegro to vote for each other …

Anna
Anna
1 year ago
Reply to  Dida

The Nordic countries did not give each other the highest point you idiot, if you cheat you will be punished for it!

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago

Does anyone know who thoses jurors were? The 6 juries are removed from the official page. Does anyone know the full scorecard of how those jurors voted? And not only the 12’s? Why don’t these countries reveal their full jury result if they want to be believed that’s the first step. Open up from your side instead of asking the EBU to clarify.

Cris
1 year ago
Reply to  Hebbuzz

I can tell you that Romania gave 12 points to Moldova and none to Ukraine. The jurors are musicians and most of them participated at Eurovision

sucof
sucof
1 year ago

The Spaniards in addition to having ruined the atmosphere of joy with their toxicity, their rudeness and presumption (they were even recalled by the EBU, for the first time in the history of this competition, for their provocative and threatening attitude), they even bribed the juries to try to win a bad, old and boring song.

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago
Reply to  sucof

“(they were even recalled by the EBU, for the first time in the history of this competition, for their provocative and threatening attitude)”

Did I miss this? Where was that? Curious now

Cookie Nation
Cookie Nation
1 year ago
Reply to  sucof

It’s quite a joy to share a passion for Eurovision with people like you (yes, it’s irony).

Yes
Yes
1 year ago

It’s clear that Spain stands behind all of this mess. Clearly huge corruption organized by Spain.

Cookie Nation
Cookie Nation
1 year ago
Reply to  Yes

I think it’s either the Illuminati or aliens, or maybe one on each show.

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago
Reply to  Yes

I think it must be the maffia LOL. Typically in Italy we have this discussion ….(this is not a serious comment, i thnk yours isnt either as there is no clue at all apart from you saying its clear)

Jonkonfui
Jonkonfui
1 year ago
Reply to  Yes

Spain???

Netherlands
Netherlands
1 year ago
Reply to  Yes

It´s clear that you come from Poland, want to organize next year because of your Ucranian friends, and have to put an effort creating a cheating country that is not yours, because obvioulsy giving next years ESC to a cheating country would not be anything aesthetic.

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago

As Georgia and Azerbaijan were both in Pot 3, Russia was disqualified and Armenia and Ukraine both were in semi 1. Howcome the juryvote of Azerbaijan and Georgia are not completely the same as Israel? Why is Estonia 4 ranks higher, Belgium & Finland both 2 lower, Romania out of the top 10? Why did Serbia and Malta switch places? Did they somehow include the Israeli televote maybe? Howcome did Azerbaijan vote Israel 1 point as Israel is the only remaining expert jury on which points were to calculated? The 11th pace in the Israel vote was North Macedonia Howcome… Read more »

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago
Reply to  Hebbuzz

Maybe they did not calculated on countries in the same pots as the allocation ones?

EBU is as usual not transparant.

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago

So Georgia and Azerbaijan got the exact same expert jury vote in both semi and final.

FUNFACT: hence Azerbaijan for the first time voted an Armenian singer 7 points during the semi. Usually they put Armenia(ns) on the bottom of their ‘expert’ ranking. 😛

I think Azerbaijan will be very unhappy with that.

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago
Reply to  Hebbuzz

Sorry only in the final off course.

Im so fab
Im so fab
1 year ago
Reply to  Hebbuzz

That’s probably the only good thing out of this mess. Do you feel it Azerbuyjan?

Jonkonfui
Jonkonfui
1 year ago

This is to complicated 4 me to understand. Ok San Marino cheated but then why would EBU give their 12 to Spain instead of Italy. Why would Ebu benefit Spain over Italy? This is a big mess.

John
John
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonkonfui

As the EBU believed San Marino cheated in the semi final, it completely voided all of its votes fir both the semi and the final.
The final result was computer generated based on similar countries voting patterns.
The other solution would have been to completely disqualify 6 countries and that would have created a big scandal on the night.
The EBU obviously hoped to keep the semi final scandal quiet.

Jonkonfui
Jonkonfui
1 year ago
Reply to  John

What similar countries to San Marino gave 12 points to Spain? What exactly does ‘similar country’ mean?

Netherlands
Netherlands
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonkonfui

They didn’t need to award Spain 12 points as long as the members in the San Marino pot left Spain 1st in general.

Btzbtz
Btzbtz
1 year ago

Ok so we cheated but you could at least give our max points to our neighbourly bias vote ! Lol this is parody levels.

Cviti97
1 year ago

San Marino is becoming Amber T*urd of eurovision

KnutA
1 year ago

In Norwegian media it said that all the 5 countries voted on songs nobody of the other 35 juries had voted for, thus it was seen as suspicious.

It also said that each of the 5 juries voted on each others, despite not having received points between 8-1 by the other juries.

In my opinion this is EBU’s mess and I expect them to sort it out.

You’ll start to wonder if any of the jury votes was legit, or did EBU rig it? ?

John
John
1 year ago
Reply to  KnutA

The 6 countries tried to cheat by voting for one another in the semi final, and so qualify for the final.
Basically 6 countries attempted to cheat 12 other countries in semi 2.
The error by the EBU was in not disqualifying the 6 countries, replace the 3 that qualified for the final with 3 other songs from semi final 2, and the final should have had 34 countries voting.
Then in 2023 the 6 countries should be banned.

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago
Reply to  John

I agree, but only if you can prove. I think EBU cannot proof, just assume
If you cannot proof, why not use the televote instead if that one is valid (Poland and Romania probably have enough voters) and besides make the calculation 100% transparant. There is no use in hiding those so secretly kept algorithms.

K-fan
K-fan
1 year ago

Unpopular Opinion: Sometimes I feel that Sweden could place a rock on stage for three minutes and still end up in top-5. Nordics have been exchanging votes between them forever and no-one has ever said anything about it. And no, I did not like this year’s Swedish entry.

eliker
eliker
1 year ago
Reply to  K-fan

Lmao, how is this an unpopular opinion?? It’s basically what everyone who doesn’t like Sweden has been echoing for the last five years. Just a reminder that Sweden wasn’t top 5 last year, but came in 14th place (which is still an ok result, but far from what you’re claiming). Please, a lot of people bring up how “the nordics vote for each other every year”, while that’s not true at all, at least not to a bigger extent than any other neighboring countries. Sweden’s jury only gave 3 points to Norway this year and 0 to every other Nordic… Read more »

Det
Det
1 year ago

The jury should not consist of five people per country. It would be much better and less possible to corrupt the result, if it was a press jury of at least 100-200 people per country, consisting of only music journalists and professional musicians and they should be allowed to be anonymous.

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago
Reply to  Det

The jury should not be a large group, as then the results will level out and all expert jury votes will be more alike. All excitement in the voting procedures leaves the room then. I like the small number of jury members.

Expert juries should be real experts. Look at jury members from Belgium and how they voted in semi 1.

Anhel
Anhel
1 year ago

“answer was because “they had the best songs. ” sounds extremely believable and I trust San Marino’s recalling of events 100%. /s

Edwin
Edwin
1 year ago
Reply to  Anhel

Wonder if it was more like “we gave the points to the songs with the highest scores” (from the other countries in those pots) — so the difference between “top” and “best” gets lost in translation

mavatu
mavatu
1 year ago

Please ban all of them next year, including sweden belgium etc, In that case more countries have an honest chance to qualify next year. When EBU leaves this unpunished, no one will ever trust the jury votes again. It’s up to them now.

Anhel
Anhel
1 year ago
Reply to  mavatu

I won’t name any names, but it looks like someone here wants to sharply increase their country’s winning chances.

Pauly
Pauly
1 year ago

oh god San Marino has the nerve to hit back even though they have cheated multple times (they exchamged random 12p with Poland in 2021 and Senhit visited Poland). This year, the HoD of San Marino randomly visited the Romanian national final and guess what… Many countries do it every year, but this year it was sooo obvious and included 6 countries instead of 2. Azerbaijan getting 12 from Spain, Serbia and Greece was very suspicious too…. Moldova-Bulgaria-Greece voted for each other in 2021 but at least they did not give the same rankings like the 6 countries this year.… Read more »

Michelle
Michelle
1 year ago
Reply to  Pauly

Can you be more explicit? You lack substance and proof.
‘This year the hod of san marino visited Romania…’ =?

Kåre Eriksen
1 year ago
Reply to  Pauly

Why is San Marino even a country? Should be part of Italy

Lorena
Lorena
1 year ago
Reply to  Kåre Eriksen

It is actually the oldest country in the world that keeps existing.

Héctor
Héctor
1 year ago

I mean, of course, they would have gone to Italy, I wasn’t expecting less from San Marino. Anyway, I’m curious to know how the six of them voted in the Grand Final. I still think Spain would have benefited.

Midnight Gold
Midnight Gold
1 year ago
Reply to  Héctor

Hasn’t your entry already benefited enough from the misguided people that decide the results for this show? Are your people so shameless to still complain about results when your own jury gave 12 to Azerbaijan but absolutely nothing for Saudade x2, while the Portuguese one actually rewarded your artificial product?

Mary M.
Mary M.
1 year ago
Reply to  Midnight Gold

Nobody is really complaining though… like seriously, nobody is here in Spain even talking about the voting anymore, everybody is celebrating Chanel’s 3rd place that artificial or not, was also voted by the public so… I think there is no need to be that hateful about it 🙂

Midnight Gold
Midnight Gold
1 year ago
Reply to  Mary M.

Well, just venting a bit because I haven’t had the chance to complain about sh*t results in ESC for about 3 years, due to the decent ones from last year and the 2020 cancellation, but still, I guess it’s only my fault for being stupid / masochistic enough to waste my time with a show that too often overlooks or even downright ignores the few people that actually bother sending some decent, genuine entries. That’s exactly why I won’t be following it too closely next year, and from now on in general.

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Midnight Gold

A better solution might be to just stop caring about the results, but still enjoy the music.

Midnight Gold
Midnight Gold
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas

Sure, but when there are usually only 5-7 entries you actually care about (around 9-10 this year tho, which is maybe why I was a bit more invested than normal) and at least half of them don’t really amount to much results-wise, you begin to lose interest. It’s not like I’ve been following this thing for decades tho, I’m only in my early 20’s, only been following the NF season to a certain extent since 2015 and I didn’t use to comment that much online either, aside from this year I guess, but I still feel like that’s too much… Read more »

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Midnight Gold

Goodbye. Come back if you change your mind.

Cookie Nation
Cookie Nation
1 year ago
Reply to  Midnight Gold

Well, maybe you should be a bit more tolerant to other people’s tastes. The fact that it’s not your cup of tea doesn’t mean it’s bad, it may mean that you are not the target. What you call decent and genuine is plain boring or uninteresting for many. Most people I talked too told me they thought Eurovision this year was difficult to follow cause there were too many slow songs. All opinions can live in our contest.

Midnight Gold
Midnight Gold
1 year ago
Reply to  Cookie Nation

You’re right, people who actually care a bit about what they’re listening to are not really the target audience for ESC, and that’s fine, nobody’s forcing me to follow it so I’ll just step aside, only giving it the amount of attention it deserves from now on, which is not a whole lot. Got fooled a bit by the decent results from last year, but that nothing song from Spain would have probably won it all if it wasn’t for Ukraine’s solidarity vote, which is reason enough for me to distance myself and just let you all whip yourselves into… Read more »

Sos
Sos
1 year ago
Reply to  Héctor

San Marino never gave 12 points to Italy lol (only a few times)

David
David
1 year ago

Any country found cheating should be banned from entering for three years.

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  David

The rules say five.

John
John
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas

The problem as I see it, is that the EBU only care about televote money . What they should have done last weekend, was totally disqualify the 6 countries (replace Poland, Azerbaijan and Romania in the final with 3 other semi final songs), and been totally honest with the public, and had just 34 televotes and 34 jury votes in the final. Instead, I can guarantee that the EBU panicked, didn’t want the public to know the full details incase it stopped people televoting, and now we have a real mess. If the 6 countries had been disqualified UK would… Read more »

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago
Reply to  David

True but then cheat should be proofed, not suspected only.

Frisian esc
1 year ago

Oh come onnnn no way ebu officials are so dumb to say ’cause they had the best songs’ show the proof of that. They used the algorithm based on the rest of the countries their voting blocks.

mavatu
mavatu
1 year ago
Reply to  Frisian esc

Belgium the best song?

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago
Reply to  mavatu

I think composition-wise Belgium had a good song (though Usher reject) but this can just not be the official EBU reaction. They never talk about the quality of entries compared to eachother.

John
John
1 year ago
Reply to  Frisian esc

Exactly. When this happened in 2019 and they replaced Georgia’s jury score, the algorithm was used.
I don’t believe a word any of the 6 countries cheats say.

Vincenzo
Vincenzo
1 year ago

I still don’t understand why if the cheating has been done in the semifinal 2, EBU has to change/alter the votes in the final for those countries. Still I cannot understand why EBU has to change the votes of San Marino for Italy (which is a very understandable vote) and assign the 12 points to Spain. Why? And why alter the votes of the other countries and give them to Sweden? I’m more and more convinced EBU was pushing like hell spain, sweden and UK in order to avoid a win of Ukraine. Problem is that televote was massive for… Read more »

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Vincenzo

They had to change the votes in the final because the jury were cheaters – what’s not to understand? The reason San Marino’s 12 did not go to Italy is because San Marino’s strength was diluted – it was the other five countries in pot four that decided, and a computer figured it out. Not some devious EBU executive. That is also how Sweden got some high points, because the other countries liked it and the computer recognized that. There is nothing here to suggest that it was programmed against a Ukraine win, as this system was designed years ago.… Read more »

Michelle
Michelle
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas

Whats not to udnerstand is you lack of logic and principles! I understand you are nordic but dont play the narrow minded card here!
Whats not to udnerstand is simple: fu.cking transparency and fair and equal rules and obligations & sanctions to ALL participanta, not cherry picking!

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Michelle

I am an unprincipled halfwit, you know me so well.

John
John
1 year ago
Reply to  Michelle

The only one swearing is you!
The substitute scores were calculated by a computer, there was no cherry picking.
Clearly you come from one of the cheating 6 countries, so with all of the swearing, I can only presume cheating and swearing is a way of life in the 6.

Héctor
Héctor
1 year ago
Reply to  Vincenzo

No one was or have been pushing Spain, more like the other way round. If the EBU didn’t wanted Ukraine to win maybe they would have put them 1st in the running order so Kalush could have done their speech, everyone would have given an ovation and we could have moved on to the real show under a fair competition. Maybe if the EBU didn’t wanted Ukrane to win they could have also disqualified Ukraine because their political statements, which, as far as I know, are forbidden (Iceland received a fine when Hatari showed the Palestinian flag). That way, maybe,… Read more »

Iamme
Iamme
1 year ago
Reply to  Vincenzo

We all know you’re right. They did everything they could in order to avoid a victory of Ukraine!

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Iamme

Only that clever televote, organized by the EBU, stopped them! Such poor planning.

Hebbuzz
Hebbuzz
1 year ago
Reply to  Vincenzo

You believe the next executive supervisor should come from Azerbaijan, Malta or San Marino? LOL

John
John
1 year ago
Reply to  Vincenzo

So you have 6 countries that cheat in the semi final, bit according to you the EBU can suddenly believe their scores in the final?
In a court of law, if the judge believes the jury is corrupt he removes the jury. This is exactly what the EBU did.
The EBU followed the rules to the letter.

Emilio
Emilio
1 year ago

These countries were obviously wrong, but two wrongs don’t make a right. What is the role of the EBU (which is supposed to be the impartial organization)? This year, San Marino had two aggregated votes, and they weren’t even in the final! what was the contribution San Marino provided, to assign random votes that not a jury, nor the televote has awarded? Like…who makes these rules?

Emilio
Emilio
1 year ago
Reply to  Emilio

Also concerning the televote, there are so many better ways to represent the preferences of the public of San Marino (for example, a demoscopic jury). the EBU management always drowns in an inch of water and overcomplicates simple solutions…

Karl
Karl
1 year ago

“What if a country cannot deliver a valid jury result? Both juries and televoters award 1 to 8, 10, and 12 points in each country. In order to secure the 50/50 balance between jury and televoting, a national televoting result can’t be used as backup result for the jury. Therefore, if – for whatever reason – a country cannot deliver a valid jury result, a substitute result is calculated by the jury result of a pre-selected group of countries. These groups and their composition have been pre-approved by the EBU permanent services and the Reference Group of the Eurovision Song… Read more »

Karl
Karl
1 year ago
Reply to  Karl

Yo I’m the OG Karl here smh

Jan van Eersel
Jan van Eersel
1 year ago
Reply to  Karl

RANDOM

There is never so much rationality in who winst the contest.
The public vote is predictable by market tools but also full of guts feelings.
The juries are more rationale but also not always.
Whatever, it is great show, it always brings some new evergreen and as long as every “Sometimes” gets the favourite to win, it keeps exciting and we all enjoy it.
?

Sir Stevia
Sir Stevia
1 year ago

Here is a little piece of advice for ya RTV: Next time you cheat, maybe make it a little less obvious : )
In all seriousness I won’t be shocked if we only have like 32 countries competing next year.

Pauly
Pauly
1 year ago
Reply to  Sir Stevia

it wouldn’t be a bad thing anyway. We don’t want cheaters and it would be a good lesson for every participating broadcaster.

esc_fl
esc_fl
1 year ago
Reply to  Sir Stevia

Wouldn’t like that to happen but a positive note may be it may set a precedent to avoid scandals like these. Maybe there would not need to be a semifinal. Don’t really want the number to be that low though, I got spoiled XD

John
John
1 year ago
Reply to  Sir Stevia

The only thing that will save the 6 countries from being banned, is the EBU obsession with money from televoting.
If they banned 6 countries, that leaves 34 taking part, and therefore possibly only 1 semi final, and only 34 countries to televote for the final.
If it was up to me, I’d ban all 6 for 5 years, as I’ve never known such a big scandal.
It has been kept out of the press though, so the EBU will not ban these 6.

Edgar
Edgar
1 year ago

Why aren’t the aggregrated results of Georgia’s an Azerbaijan’s juries the same in the final? I mean they are in the same pot. So it basically has to be results of Armenia+Israel+Ukraine? Correct me if I am wrong

Karl
Karl
1 year ago
Reply to  Edgar

Good question. I want to know too.

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Karl

Probably because they were voting on different countries, with only some the same.

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas

Ignore me, I think I misunderstood the question…

Daya Sloten
Daya Sloten
1 year ago
Reply to  Edgar

They are the same right?

Michael
Michael
1 year ago
Reply to  Edgar

They are, though. Their top 6 votes in SF2 are also identical, only their bottom 4 diverge… which is weird, I agree

Ethan
Ethan
1 year ago

san marino was that little contestant everybody was simpathetic to. Now they are destroying it

Daniel
Daniel
1 year ago
Reply to  Ethan

Has more understanding of San Marino than the other countries in any case. It is a very high cost for them as a small country and TV company.
They must finance both the EBU membership and the participation fee as well as other costs for participating in the competition.
They should get a discount.

Daniel
Daniel
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel

There is a reason why small countries such as Andorra, Lichtenstein etc are not in the competition

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Daniel

They do get a discount. The countries don’t all pay the same amount, just what they can afford – based on how much money they have.

Daniel
Daniel
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas

Yes but not enough

Pauly
Pauly
1 year ago
Reply to  Ethan

San Marino has always been corrupted, acting like the smaller child of Azerbaijan. I still can’t believe how azerbaijan has not been banned from ESC after breaking the EBU rules multiple times.

raylee
raylee
1 year ago

What is this voting scandal ? I left following the news after the night of grand final and suddenly i discovered news like this and i didn’t understand what’s going on with this voting situation

Daniela
Daniela
1 year ago

They already got exposed and they STILL think we are gonna believe them

Xxx
Xxx
1 year ago

Do they think we’re dumb?

ete sech
ete sech
1 year ago

Oh God, this is such a mess and EBU didn’t make thinks as clear as they should have.
No one’s innocent in this, I believe that the involved broadcasters are trying to gaslight the audience at this point but the EBU isn’t any better and they’re yet to explain their decision too

Daya Sloten
Daya Sloten
1 year ago
Reply to  ete sech

How is the EBU not any better? Did they ever cheat and put the whole contests into jeopardy? No they are just trying to handle it the best way possible

ete sech
ete sech
1 year ago
Reply to  Daya Sloten

The way they’re handling the situation leaves a lot to be desired and turning a blind eye to similar situations makes me think they’re not doing their best. I could be wrong, though, there must be a lot going on behind the scene.

John
John
1 year ago
Reply to  ete sech

The EBU have always been dreadful at correcting the results once the show ends. In 1999 Croatia had 30% of their score voided (for using backing tracks) and in 1988 Italy were disqualified (as song released in 87), so Switzerland won by 7 points not 1 as Italy jury score cancelled…but if you look at the history of the contest, nothing has been updated. The EBU are just terrible at being transparent. Instead of letting these 6 countries tell their viewers all kinds of rubbish, the EBU should be printing the semi final results from these 6, and highlight how… Read more »

John
John
1 year ago
Reply to  Daya Sloten

The EBU are just incredibly naive.
I expect they worry about the effect these situations have on televote revenue.
They probably worry no-one will televote if they don’t trust the juries.
The correct thing to do would have been to remove Romania,Azerbaijan and Poland from the final, and go with a 22 song final, or replace them with 3 ‘losing’ semi finalists on back up video.

What I don’t understand is why Poland got involved, as Poland would have qualified for the final without cheating, as they have a strong overseas disporia.

ete sech
ete sech
1 year ago
Reply to  ete sech

I’m not even defending the broadcasters, wtf with the downvotes?

Lorena
Lorena
1 year ago

Not even EBU asked for nothing from their side: no apologies, no sanctions… what’s the motivation to stop doing this if they are not even ashamed?

Tom
Tom
1 year ago

Oh pls people thinks that only EBU is bad … I believe the juries playing dirty …

Voix
Voix
1 year ago

“When asked why the canceled votes of San Marino and the other 5 suspected countries were all given to Sweden (who were given 72 points) and Australia (60 points for her) the answer was because “they had the best songs”

EXCUSE ME WHAT? If this is real I swear….

Grftn
Grftn
1 year ago
Reply to  Voix

In which world can you believe it is real? The points were given to these countries because of the rules explained 3738 times on EBU’s website and recalled the last few days.

Daya Sloten
Daya Sloten
1 year ago
Reply to  Grftn

Some broadcasters are really just trying to gaslight at this point

Hugobolso
Hugobolso
1 year ago

Poor San Marino. Italy can be deshonest without punishment buymt his satélite State dont.
If the jury is catched. Well the audience vote should be duplicated. And not create an algoritm that make UK in the seccond place and number 1 in the jury.

Jason
Jason
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugobolso

Perhaps the jury’s from the usual countries shouldn’t cheat, then we wouldn’t have this silliness.

John
John
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugobolso

That algorithm is the same algorithm used in 2019 , it is computer generated…it wasn’t specifically creates for 2022!

vetrina
vetrina
1 year ago

Nordic countries vote each other every single year. But EBU administration is full of Swedes so….

Swedishlady
Swedishlady
1 year ago
Reply to  vetrina

how many times do the EBU have to explain why this is different then country’s voting on their neighbors? And stop acting like that only happens in the nordic, we had a great song this year and only got two 12s from all our nordic neighbors.
What these countrys have done is wrong and the deserve to be disqualified from atleast next eurovision.

Jack
Jack
1 year ago
Reply to  Swedishlady

Yeah you got 12 from your neighbors and forced the others to give you 72 extra points because… you deserve them :’) very democratic of ebu

Tom
Tom
1 year ago
Reply to  Jack

Denmark and Norway did not give 12 points to Sweden …

Tomi
Tomi
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom

Because they gave their 12 points to the Norwegian song from Greece. Duuhhh…

Midnight Gold
Midnight Gold
1 year ago
Reply to  Tomi

If I were Greek, I’d be really grateful the Norwegians “gifted” us one of our best entries ever while they only sent a joke act themselves.

Tomi
Tomi
1 year ago
Reply to  Midnight Gold

‘Die Together’ is definitely one of the all-time best songs from Greece. After the shows, it became my favourite song this year. Yet, I struggle to see that song as a Greek entry because that instrumental sounds very Scandinavian to me.

Midnight Gold
Midnight Gold
1 year ago
Reply to  Tomi

I never subscribed to that line of thinking, it would be really tedious if each entry had to sound like stereotypical music from that country every single year. As long as the artist has a connection to the place they’re representing, just let them send whatever they want.

Samo
Samo
1 year ago
Reply to  Tomi

Nordic countries didn’t give each other 12 points in 2021 either. There are no data supporting the narrative about Nordic bloc voting.

Erik2
Erik2
1 year ago
Reply to  Jack

Dont shift the focus! Sweden are one of the victims of these five countries cheating. It’s obvious that not only were these countries trying to enhance their opportunity to reach the final. They slso were trying to minimize the chances for Sweden by placing Sweden ridiculously low in the ranking. Thanks to the EBU catching you with your pants down Sweden ended up earning on it. This since your points were changed into the calculated points for countries in the same geographical/cultural group of countries. This is not Swedens fault. You ate the cheaters and all others are victims of… Read more »

Tomi
Tomi
1 year ago
Reply to  Erik2

Now Sweden is the victim? LMAO Once again they undeservedly ended in the TOP5. ‘Hold Me Closer’ should never have climbed higher than 7th-10th. Thus, Sweden was once again overrated. Why does this contest always have to be about Sweden? I honestly don’t understand.

John
John
1 year ago
Reply to  Erik2

Exactly. People ignore the fact that in semi final 2 6 countries tried to cheat 12 other countries .
Now these 6 countries are trying to pretend to play the victim, because they can’t say to their viewers ” we cheated”.

That Romanian spokeswoman on video with the fake shock at not being asked for the vote, could have been filmed at any time

Michelle
Michelle
1 year ago
Reply to  Swedishlady

Haha:))) ‘we had a great song and only got two 12s from all our nordic neighbors’ – you realise what you just wrote?!
Sweden had an Aqua type of song with an adult women acting as a teenager with dirty barefoot scenes for foot fetishists:)) -in a nutshell

Tom
Tom
1 year ago
Reply to  vetrina

Nordic??? And Poland giving to Ukraine and Lithuania or between Baltics and Ex Yugoslavia, Moldova – Romania, Turkey – Azerbaijan and Greece – Cyprus. Pls dont be jealous. Those 6 should be disqulfieod… i am happy that Czech and Macedonia are leaving next year … this Contest was and will be forever a joke … sadly

Michelle
Michelle
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom

Moldova to Romania?! Where?

Slabsson54
Slabsson54
1 year ago
Reply to  Tom

Czech Republic is leaving? Where do you have that news from? I mean we neither confirmed ESC 2023 nor have we officially announced withdrawal afaik

ete sech
ete sech
1 year ago
Reply to  vetrina

To say they vote each other is kind of a stretch, all the Nordics vote Sweden but Sweden rarely reciprocates

Lorena
Lorena
1 year ago

Apparently they didn’t realize until today… maybe to focus the attention in another matter rather than they cheating?

Briekimchi
Briekimchi
1 year ago

“When asked why the canceled votes of San Marino and the other 5 suspected countries were all given to Sweden (who were given 72 points) and Australia (60 points for her) the answer was because “they had the best songs. ”

This just can’t be in any way true, right? They can’t give that as an actual answer to this enquiry, surely?

Daya Sloten
Daya Sloten
1 year ago
Reply to  Briekimchi

no it obviously isn’t true. They explained it is an aggregated result like a thousand times and it is in the rules they all agreed to before the contest. RTV is just trying to gaslight everyone and its embarrassing really trying to pull this off after blatantly cheating so obviously

Alex
Alex
1 year ago

The sad part is that fan vote more fairly than these “professional” and they act like children. The audacity to first call out the EBU and see the proof of the cheating and once they do, they’re like “oh well that’s unfair. We don’t know what you’re talking about”. Honestly I hope there are repercussions and punishment for the countries. Increase the jury size to at least 10 for a better statistical way to calculate the votes and reduce bias AND fine or ban the countries involved in the cheating

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago

San Marino had two sets of fake points. Should they not be the same?

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas

I understand that bit, but seeing as how San Marino have never even had a televote in all the years they’ve been in the contest, how is it possible to know which countries vote like them? Their “pot” is already half wrong.

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas

Yeah, but how are the fake televote points decided? There’s no way of knowing who votes like them because they’ve never voted.

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Jonas

Thank you.

Karl
Karl
1 year ago

in other words, Israel was the only country the algorithm had to calculate results from for Azerbaijan and Georgia, and since the Israeli jury gave Sweden 12, Australia 10 and Poland 8, it´s no surprise that Azerbaijan and Georgias calculated top three were these three.

EBU needs to revamp the jury system and maybe rethink the pots for the allocation draw and maybe have more countries in every pot

Karl
Karl
1 year ago
Reply to  Karl

in the semifinal

Daya Sloten
Daya Sloten
1 year ago
Reply to  Karl

or they could just do an average of all the other jury’s so it basically wouldn’t change anything

ESC Stan
ESC Stan
1 year ago
Reply to  Karl

Or countrys juries should just not take money for what is, essentially, a song contest?

NickC
NickC
1 year ago

I think this shows the underlying problems with juru voting. Unless they fix the mechanism, this will happen again and again.

Nancy G
Nancy G
1 year ago

I was expecting at least a small apology. Clowns!

At the same time, the EBU’s “oh we have technical difficulties” moment is such a blatant lie. I can’t.

Daya Sloten
Daya Sloten
1 year ago
Reply to  Nancy G

Martin Osterdahl didn’t actually say that, he just said that there were problems with the vote. Mika did say that they had maybe lost connection but it probably was chaos with all these people talking in his ears saying they had to go to Osterdahl instead so I don’t blame him

WannaEatMySpaghetti
WannaEatMySpaghetti
1 year ago

1) They have the audacity to complain even if they are the first ones to cheat? Too late for this. 2) No, simply deleting the voting of the concerned juries os not enough. We can’t let the cheating coubtries to receive poibts from other countries while not giving any to others. And we can’t fire their artist from the contest, ot’s not fair for them who didn’t ask anything. 3) No, reducing the power of juries is not the good answer. When juries do their job correctly, everything is fine. We need juries to give their opinion because sometimes public… Read more »

WannaEatMySpaghetti
WannaEatMySpaghetti
1 year ago

Damn, I can’t write with a smartphone.

Midnight Gold
Midnight Gold
1 year ago

Annoying memes and dishonest voting, that’s San Marino in ESC summed up. Maybe finally time for them to take a break…

Midnight Gold
Midnight Gold
1 year ago
Reply to  Midnight Gold

I think they should have already been thrown out back in 2019 based on Serhat’s qualification bringing the contest into disrepute, honestly.

Jonas
Jonas
1 year ago
Reply to  Midnight Gold

Rich people paying to live out their fantasies. That has happened too often with San Marino.

Midnight Gold
Midnight Gold
1 year ago
Reply to  Midnight Gold

You disagree because you just want the contest to be a massive circus full of acts like Serhat and Subwoolfer, gotcha.

Midnight Gold
Midnight Gold
1 year ago
Reply to  Midnight Gold

Haha, so I was actually right. Yes, they both got plenty of votes from the pan-European public but that only showcases the kind of audience that votes in ESC and not the merit of the entries themselves, which was next to zero. You’ve got to be able to read the results for what they really are.

Robert
Robert
1 year ago

What a mess.. I mean just why?! I’m just glad the only 12 points S10 received for De Diepte was from a country not involved with this BS.. Happy the EBU are on top of this and great job.. I hope the people involved do better next time, it’s already hard enough explaining and defending Eurovision voting to my non Eurovision loving friends, family and colleagues without this happening.. I mean come on keep it fair….

Eurovision fan
Eurovision fan
1 year ago

Reduce the power of jury

Zulal
Zulal
1 year ago

‘We asked how this new vote was “calculated” but we have not been given a precise answer’. And my question is: Why do you even ask? It’s explained in the rules. Like literally, if you head to eurovision.tv there you have the explanation :/. It takes you less than 2 minutes. How is it even possible for a delegation member (from any country) to not know this? I’m just a simple fan and I knew about the “aggregated/substitute result” for many years

Ellie
Ellie
1 year ago
Reply to  Zulal

They know. They’re promoting the idea the EBU magicked up a suspicious replacement vote instead of one using a system agreed upon ahead of time because RTV want to distract from the fact that this algorithm only required using because of *their own cheating.*

Zulal
Zulal
1 year ago
Reply to  Ellie

Yes, maybe that’s true. But that sucks. It’s affecting Eurovision’s and the EBU’s image even more. Some people really think the EBU is to blame here cause they think they manipulated the votes, when in reality the EBU took the right action to prevent fraud voting from affecting the final result. Some broadcasters (I’m looking at you, TVR) should be fined, not only for their irresponsible jury, but also for spreading fake news