Surprising news from the Swedish newspaper “Aftonbladet” ! Svante Stockelius, responsible for the Eurovision Song Contest at the Swedish broadcaster SVT stated that the group Friends was actually disqualified, but that they could enter the contest after a second voting at the EBU.
Svante Stockelius told to “Aftonbladet” that Friends was disqualified first because of the possible plagiarism. The song “Listen to you heartbeat” looks very much like the song of the Belgian entry of 1996 Lisa del Bo, who participated with “Liefde is een kaartspel”. Also a Croatian songwriter complained about Friends. His song “Isus najvece ime” was very similar to “Listen to you heartbeat”.
In the first situation, the European Broadcasting Union disqualified the Swedish group. It was better for Sweden to send Barbados with “Allt som jag ser”, the second place winner of the Swedish national final. An extra meeting at the EBU with SVT saved the group. An extra voting was held: three of seven were against Friends, the other four agreed with “Listen to you heartbeat”. It saved Friends, however they were very close to a disqualificaation…
Good luck Friends !
