Dutch delegation furious

Dutch delegation furious about the voting system in SOTY.

In a press conference the Dutch management made it clear they consider not voting in the SOTY 2008 of USC. Where-as 22 countries –the non qualifiers- are allowed to divide their (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+10+12=) 58 points over their favorites. The qualified countries all together form the 23rd jury. This jury exists of 18 members, so their influence on the final ranking is margined from 1/23rd to 1/414th . This seems rather unfair.

The USC management argued that the rule change was tested and was needed because some countries switched managers and some managers had more than one song in the SOTY competition. So it would be impossible to keep a track on who votes its own songs? The Dutch management claims that all managers and songs of the past year are known to management so this cannot be the reason for a rule change.

All give 58 points, but when given by a qualified manager they are worth only 3,2 points (=58/18), a 12 only 0,67 points (=12/18th) .

The Dutch management suspects the USC management to give their own songs (Greece and Slovenia) more profit from this rule. The rule is argued to be more fair, but in fact it’s even beneficial for players with more than one song in the SOTY final (Sweden Greece & Spain) !

Because every player is obliged to vote the same amount of points? Not really : If Sweden gives 12 points to an opponent it’s divided by 18 (because of the shared jury nr 23) So Swedish songs profit from that a lot when a non Sweden-player votes a Swedish song. Then Sweden relatively receives 18 times more points….. More over Sweden is allowed to vote even for itself.

The Status of the UK jury is unclear as well. Are their 4 members considered as 1 jury or does each of their votes have the same weight as i.e. the Macedonian vote?

Off course we want this competition to be about music, not about countries. So this rule change shouldn’t have applied at all. The Dutch management proclaims “We’d rather have no vote than voting within this malfunctioning system!”

The chief of the Dutch Management also stated “We have a problem with reviews being published during the voting. We know The Italian staff agrees on that one as well. “