The Maltasong board responsible for selecting Malta's Eurovision Song Contest entry, has exclusively told escmalta.com and ogaemalta.com that the official number of submitted songs for the Malta Song For Europe Festival 2007 is 228. This is a slight rise on last year's 213 entries.
Robert Abela, the Board Chairman, also revealed to ogaemalta.com that the first phase will be held between the 23rd and 25th November, when a jury will listen to the 228 songs and shortlist them to 50. The results will be announced through the Maltasong board website on Monday 27th November.
The Maltasong board confirmed withOGAE Malta, Malta's national Eurovisoin fanclub,that the panel will be made of international judges only.
The second round of selection is aimed for the 9th December, however this depends on the availability of the international panel of judges.
Malta's result in 2006 was a stark contrast to the year before. Chiara took Malta to second place at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2005 in her second appearance at the competition. Fabrizio Faniello won the small island's ticket to Athens this year for his own second appearance in the competition. Fabrizio only managed to score a single point as his song I do finished in last place at the final.
