Eurodrama: a big cheating scandal at the Eurovision Song Contest

It's tradition: the unavoidable hangover after Europe's exuberant and eccentric yearly song contest in May. Every year after Eurovision, there's an episode of Eurodrama.

Some countries react indignant or sad when they receive zero points for their entry, while others firmly believe they should have won instead of coming in second or third.

(In the photo, Germany's Jendrik who ended second to last in 2021 with his song 'I Don't Feel Hate')

This year's Eurodrama, however, is bigger than the usual misgivings. It appears there has been a 'scam' at the 2022 edition of the song festival. The story emerged in the days after the song contest's grand final on May 14.

During the live broadcast of the song contest from Turin, Italy, 40 different countries were supposed to get a video call to present their jury scores for the contestants to a 180+ million audience. In the case of six countries, the connection was mysteriously lost.

For reasons that were unclear at the time, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) appeared to be unable to make a live connection with Romania, Georgia, Montenegro, Azerbaijan, San Marino and Poland. It seemed an unfortunate coincidence, but right after the show the plot thickened...

Right after the final, the EBU announced that there had been "irregularities" in these six nations' jury counts. It had happened on Thursday, during the second semi-final, when national juries and televoters decided who would go to the grand final on Saturday.

Because of its suspicions about the semi-final, the Eurovision organizer replaced the votes of these 6 countries in the grand final with scores calculated by an algorithm.

(Photo: EBU / Sarah Louise Bennett)

After these changes, Romania, which had initially awarded its most valuable 12 points in the final to Moldova, now "awarded" those 12 points to Ukraine. At the same time, two countries that had actually given their 12 points to Ukraine - Georgia and Azerbaijan - now ended up giving these important votes to the UK.

At around 12:20 am on Sunday, while the votes of the various juries were still being broadcast, the EBU issued a statement saying that the expert voting in the second semi-final had manifested "certain irregular voting patterns in the results of six countries."

To comply with the rules, the EBU recalculated the votes of these six countries based on what other juries had confirmed with similar results. In other words, the points were changed based on estimates from surrounding countries before the final score was announced on TV.

(Photo: EBU / Nathan Reinds)

After the show, the countries in question denounced this decision. They called it unjust and complained that they had not been told about it.

The EBU has not commented in detail on the incident, but media like Metro, Irish Times and Independent reported on the 'furious' reactions by the suspected countries as well as speculations among commentators about fraud.

(Photo: EBU / Sarah Louise Bennett)

TV-host Piers Morgan was quoted in Metro as calling this year's Eurovision a "rigged farce." He also claimed that the Ukrainian Kalush Orchestra had won a "sympathy" vote" because of televoters' emotions about the Russian invasion in Ukraine - not because it was the best song.

There's also the question of what the final ranking really would have been if the original votes of the 6 countries had been taken into account. Ukraine was so popular among televoters that its first place is undisputed, but how about numbers 2, UK, and 3, Spain?

(Image: UK's contestant, Sam Ryder)

The ambiguity about the final jury counts has raised doubts as to whether Spain (photo) could have finished second instead of the United Kingdom.

While an extended report from the EBU has not been released, it only made a brief statement about the affair: "The EBU takes attempts at manipulation of votes during the Eurovision Song Contest very seriously and has the right to stop them, as required by the rules, regardless of whether or not such votes can affect the outcome."

Back in 2002, Eurovision organizers had noticed that six countries had randomly awarded their 12 points to Cyprus. Euronews reports that there were suspicions of a 'Warsaw Pact bloc' or a 'Balkan bloc' among certain Eastern European countries. As the EBU suspected collusion, it scrapped their votes in the finals and replaced them with "fictitious televoting" based on "similar voting patterns and sociocultural identity."

Another year of Eurodrama was 2013, when the EBU annulled Georgia's election because the jury members' votes (with scores ranging from 2 to 12) were too similar. In 2019, the votes of the Belarusian jury were sanctioned after its members spoke about their favorite songs in the media, WiWiBloggs reported.

In 2021, there was not so much a controversy about jury results but rather about the winners' behavior during the final. France, whose Barbara Pravi had been a favorite but came in second, accused the winning band Måneskin from Italy of using drugs on live TV during the final. Its members had been caught on camera with their faces very close to the table. France concluded that they had been snorting something and should be disqualified.

In the end, the situation was cleared up. Måneskin did not use any drugs on TV, it just looked that way. At the next final, its leader Damiano David did give a piece of advice to the competing singers of the 2022 song contest: "Have fun - and don't get close to the table guys."