This comes as a positive shock - great news! The EBU has announced if a country is found guilty of fix voting, they will be punished and face a ban from the contest for three years. It's great to see that these problems are being addressed.This comes after the EBU carried out an investigation following the drama last year when Lithuanian students were apparently bribed to vote for Azerbaijan. After a long investigation, the EBU decided not to take any further action regarding this video because there is no solid evidence linking it the national broadcaster - and it could have been staged for all we know... there is simply not enough evidence! The Reference Group have tightened measures to ensure the voting is fair and to protect the Eurovision brand itself! Countries who are found guilty of cheating will be banned from participating for three years. Jon Ola Sand commented:
We are now tightening the procedures on the jury voting, and the tele-voting, putting more responsibility on the broadcasters because we found a lot of them didn't even have a clue that this could happen. Our message to everyone is, if you are involved in acts like this, it could have a consequence, everyone will suffer.Let's hope the drama of last year doesn't repeat itself!! :-)
Glad to hear that the EBU has not simply ignored the vote-fixing allegations surrounding the Azerbaijani entry last year. Ok, fair enough, there wasn't sufficient evidence to impose punitive measures in that instance but the threat of a 3-year ban should be enough to deter any country from attempting to gain votes by deception. There is enough cheating going on in all that concerns any form of competition (the use of drugs in sport being a prime example). ESC has a reputation to uphold and so the EBU's planned sanctions are more than welcome in protecting the integrity of the contest.
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