Chairman of ETV Aare Urm and the main organizer of Eurovision 2002 denied the information published yesterday in the media that Paadam will be replaced with music businessman Peeter Rebane.

“Paadam is chosen by the board of ETV and also confirmed by EBU as a main organizer and nobody has replaced him”, announced Urm.

Paadam said that he can be fired only with a decision made by the board of ETV. “Nobody has fired me by Thursday evening”, he added.

Urm still mentioned that they have discussed the possibility that Peeter Rebane will be helping the organizing team in some way.

That Rebane can help Paadam as a manager was discussed yesterday in the meeting of the Eurovision Song Contest organizing board, said the member of the board, the chairman of Estonian Radio (Eesti Raadio) Ain Saarna.

“It is obvious that Paadam can't manage to organize everything, but the main organizer must come from ETV. Rebane can only take the role of management”, said Saarna.

Rebane said that he has had some discussions about this subject with ETV but they have not made any official offering. “It would be a very interesting but I'm not sure I would take it”, he added.

Yesterday, the main organizer of the year 2000 contest and a member of EBU reference group Svante Stockselius praised the preparations. Stockselius said that ETV has left a very professional impression. “The preparations are are going as planned and we have no doubt that ETV will manage to organize the event excellently”, he said. In his opinion it is impressive that ETV has already started shooting the videoclips for the tv-show next year.