Controversial presenter Piers Morgan has criticised the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 as a 'rigged farce' after the UK was knocked into second spot in the event. Ukraine rap group Kalush Orchestra won following overwhelming public support.
With the voting split into two parts, the UK's Sam Ryder was in top spot following the first half of judging which was done by juries from the individual countries. However the second half of voting - this time from a public vote - saw Ukraine sweep to victory.
But writing on Twitter the TalkTV presenter labelled the win as a “sympathy vote” following the country's fight against its Russian invaders. And he said that the result of the Singing Contest “shouldn’t be determined by which countries are suffering most at the time”, reports The Mirror.
Ukraine, with its track Stefania, had been the favourites from the start, ahead of the final in Turin, Italy. Following the jury vote the UK had 283 points followed by Sweden on 258. Ukraine was well behind in fourth place on 192 points.
But ultimately the Ukrainian band scooped the top spot once the public votes came in – propelling them to the top of the list with 631 points. The UK was in second place with 466.
Amid Ukraine's devastation as a result of the ongoing conflict with Russia, which resulted in Russia being banned from the annual singing contest, the country's win was particularly poignant.
Accepting the prize, the band said: "Thank you so much. Thank you for supporting Ukraine. This victory is for every Ukrainian!"
Kalush were tipped to win early in the competition and impressed voters with their song Stefania, which was written about frontman Oleh Psyuk’s mother.
But following the result Piers Morgan took to Twitter to complain about the victory. When a Twitter user then challenged Piers on his criticism of Eurovision, suggesting the broadcaster would rather we “just feed all the songs into a computer and it should calculate which one is 'best'.”
Piers replied: “No, I don’t. But nobody who voted for Ukraine thought it was the best song because it obviously wasn’t anywhere near the best. Even Ukrainians don’t think it was the best song..
“They got the sympathy vote, which is fine so long as we drop the word “contest” from Eurovision.” He added in a separate tweet: “The world’s most absurd, pointless, politically-motivated “contest” excels itself.
"Ukraine could have sent one of its heroic bomb-sniffing dogs to bark the national anthem and still won. Happy for them, but please let’s stop calling Eurovision a contest… it’s a rigged farce.”
Continuing his criticism, Piers added: “The result of an international singing “contest” shouldn’t be determined by which countries are suffering most at the time of the ‘contest’ or there is no point having a contest.”
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