After his disqualification from the Romanian final, Marius Moga, also known as Morandi, the composer of the disqualified song Dracula my love continues his battle with TVR and has returned with accusations of plagiarism regarding other finalists as it was revealed by Infonews. Their boycott meant that only eight songs competed in last Saturday's national final.

The story began when Dracula, my love, one of the hot favorites in this year's Romanian final was disqualified for being broadcast prior to October 1st. The song's composer, Marius Moga, who also participated in the contest with Crazy by Wassabi and Morandi, threatened to withdraw the latter if Dracula, my love was not reinstated in the final. His appeal was dismissed by TVR and Wassabi and Morandi proceeded to boycott the final by not showing up at all. Locomondo won and everyone thought we had seen the last of this.

As it was revealed afterwards further plagiarism allegations had been lodged by Mr Moga. Just before the Romanian final, Marius Moga emailed Dan Manoliu, TVR's Eurovision Supervisor, claiming thatTime by Ionut Ungureanu(another finalist)was a copy of the Cristofori's dreams by David Lanz, the famous pianist and winner of many Grammy awards . Dan Manoliu confirmed the existence of this email and said that he immediately ordered an investigation to determine whether there was any truth in the allegations.

"The e-mail was really sent from Morandi. I passed it immediately on to the experts and although there is a slight similarity, we don't have plagiarism. The composers knew about the accusations because they had received the same mail earlier that day. We would have gone on with the show even if there were only 3 songs left." declared Dan Manoliu.

The Romanian supervisor promises new regulations for next year. Any competitor who doesn't comply with the set rules will be taken to justice and of course they will be disqualified.

While the scandals continue in Romania, TVR, the Romanian broadcaster, announced an increase in the budget for the promotion of this year's entry. In 2005 the budget for promoting Luminita Anghel & Sistem's entry was 140.000 euros. Next year saw a significant increase of 30%, with 180.000 euros spent for promoting Mihai Traistariu's participation. This year we are looking at a budget of 200.000 euros. So it seems Locomondo will have to demonstrate that they deserve the investment.

Aspecial thanks to Aris Kalimeris for the submission of the information.