The Eurovision week might be well and truly underway in Portugal, but a comment from the country’s winner Salvador Sobral was pretty enough to cause the angry outburst of the Croatian 2017 entrant, Jacques Houdek.

During an interview with the Portuguese newspaper Publico, Salvador was asked to share his opinion on one of this year’s hot favourites, the Israeli entry. His answer was rather offensive for Netta’s song Toy, as he characterized the song as horrible and he also expressed his view that things have not changed in Eurovision after his victory, as they were expected to do by many fans last year.

Jacques Houdek throws his arrows

His statements seem to have provoked the rage of many supporters of the Israeli hopeful, and not only. Amid the turmoil that has arisen, Jacques Houdek, who represented Croatia in 2017 with the song My friend, posted on Facebook a long text, with which he disapproves him of his words.

In the meantime, he makes an extensive reference to last year’s contest in Kyiv. According to him, Salvador’s absence from the first week of rehearsals, due to his health issues, should have been a reason for disqualification and he also blames him for arrogance towards all of his last year’s co-competitors, during his victory speech.

Closing his announcement, he called on him to immediately apologize for his statements while saying that his behaviour makes him anything but a real winner. In addition, he wished all the best to this year’s entrants.

Below you may have a look at Jacques’ words:

SHAME ON YOU, Salvador Sobral!!! SHAME ON YOU!!! Is this how a winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is supposed to speak out? You tried so hard to portray yourself as a humble man, as a true artist, and you may have tricked the entire Europe, but you did not fool me! Let me tell you something Salvador Sobral – last year, when you missed out on ALL of the ESC rehearsals, and your sister did them for you – the European Broadcasting Union – EBU should have disqualified you! It was unprofessional and extremely unfair to all of us who were there, doing all the hard work! It was also very sad and unfortunate that you were sick, I have to say, but if you are having health issues – YOU DON‘T TAKE ON such a huge project like Eurosong! Even in your own victory speech you were unpleasant to all of us, your fellow Eurosong contestants – but NOW, you are being far more rude by picking on Israel‘s representative Netta Barzilai and her song, it is just outrageous! So patronising and completely inappropriate, not gentleman-like of you to do this! You should apologize ASAP!!! You are not just a winner of Esc, you are a host now, as Esc is held in your own country, so this behavior of yours is even worse! If you hate the concept of Eurovision so much, you never should have competed! Now, you even say you want to get as far away from the fact you won the Esc… Come on… The fact that you had to struggle to listen to last year songs and now you are so happy that you don‘t have to listen to any of this year‘s „horrible“ ESC songs just tells us all that you are a very small person! All of these young artists have dreams and they are under enormous pressure at this moment, so who are you to put shade on any of them? You may think you are a true artist, that is your right, but to me you just seem like a poser. Do you really think you are cool by acting so non-interested and distant? Not! Do you really believe that this kind of behaviour makes you a bigger artist in the public eye? It does not! It just shows us all that you are fake, just like you were a year ago when you won the ESC 2017. You may have won the ESC, but to me you are not a winner! I wish all the best of luck to all the contestants in this year‘s competition. Kisses and hugs from sunny Croatia!

Salvador Sobral has been set to perform on the stage of Altice Arena on Saturday’s Grand Final.

What’s your own opinion on Salvador’s and Jacques’ words?