International

Russia is the favourite to win the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest final this Saturday. Tonight they compete in the first semi final. Eurovision organisers will now have to decide whether the Russian broadcaster responsible for the country’s Eurovision participation will be penalised or whether their jury results will be declared invalid.
     The juries vote on the dress rehearsal 24 hours before the live final. Their votes are then calculated alongside the televote to calculate each country’s score.
     The Event Supervisor for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Stockholm, Sweden told Metro: “We are carefully looking into it and will issue a statement later this afternoon”.
     Russia’s entrant Sergey Lazarev is not connected at all to the scandal and there are fears that the troublesome situation could affect his chances of success.
     Anastasiya Stotskaya, a 33 year old singer broadcast via social media app Periscope during the performances of Netherlands and Armenia. The broadcast quickly went viral as Eurovision fans realised what was going on. Stotskaya has over 1800 followers on Periscope and has received almost 200,000 ‘likes’ for her broadcasts.