Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, after Israel was allowed to compete.
They were among a number of countries who had called for Israel to be excluded over the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza, and accusations of unfair voting practices.
Despite calls for a vote on Israel’s participation, members instead approved a new set of rules intended to protect the integrity of the contest.
Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE said it felt that its “participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk.”
In a statement, Dutch broadcaster Avrotros said that “participation under the current circumstances is incompatible with the public values that are essential to us”.
Spanish broadcaster RTVE added: “The board of directors of RTVE agreed last September that Spain would withdraw from Eurovision if Israel was part of it.”
“This withdrawal also means that RTVE will not broadcast the Eurovision 2026 final… nor the preliminary semi-finals.”
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Did they? There will also be an official Eurovision Sing Contest, but will it be the ESC?
Yes, they’re still very popular despite being hosted by the OG Nazis in 1936.
i may be misinterpreting but i think the other poster is saying the olympics ceased to be what they had been up to that point and what we have now is a zombie masquerading as the olympics
The Olympics used to be for amateurs only and athletes who were professional and earned their living from a sport weren’t allowed to compete. I remember reading about the UK’s Torvil & Dean figure skaters who after their win at the olympics in the 80’s went pro… and a couple of olympics later there was massive debate and changes to rules to allow them to compete again.
All the modern olympics of the last 30-40yrs are about is faux national pride and money… same for the bodies of all sports… they’re all corrupt and they’re all about stockpiling as much cash as they can for bribes and kickbacks… some of them like FIFA have hundreds of millions of cash reserves… But they don’t pay countries to host the world cup, the countries pay them, pay for the construction, pay for the infrastructure and FIFA reaps in the sponsorship and TV money.