The Executive Producers of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest Ms. Victoria Romanova and Mr. Oleksandr Kharebin have resigned today.

The Eurovision community is a shock after Ms. Victoria Romanova and Mr. Oleksadr Kharebin‘s resignation today. Several members of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest Core Team have followed suit: Ms. Iryna Asman (Commercial Director) Mr.Denys Bloshchynskyi (Event Manager) have also  resigned. The Head of Security Oleksii Karaban was also on the signatory letter.

Ms. Victoria Romanova has played a key role at NTUwhen it came to the Eurovision Song Contest having led the Ukrainian delegation since 2005, she has also been an essential link between the Ukrainian broadcaster and the EBU.

The EBU has released the following statement regarding this matter:

Victoria Romanova, Oleksandr Kharebin, Iryna Asman, Denys Bloshchynski and his team and Oleksii Karaban informed the EBU on 10^th February that they were resigning from their roles for the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest. The group felt they were not able to continue work on the project owing to staffing matters at UA:PBC, which the EBU cannot fully comment on. 

The team have been instrumental in the planning for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, and we thank them for their hard work. We have reiterated to UA:PBC the importance of a speedy and efficient implementation of plans already agreed, despite staff changes, and that we stick to the timeline and milestones that have been established and approved by the Reference Group to ensure a successful Contest in May.

Further information regarding the core team of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest will be released in due course. The 2017 Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Kyiv’s International Exhibition Centre on 9^th, 11^th and 13^th May. Last year Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest with the song 1944 performed by Jamala.

Stay tuned to ESCToday for more information on this developing story.