Imagine watching the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, spending $9 USD to vote for your favorite act, only for the whole event to end up feeling like a wasted opportunity for the clear favorite. That’s how potentially millions of Eurovision fans were feeling when it was announced that Sweden won by 60 points against the fan favorite, Finland.
Not everyone was happy when it was announced that Loreen is 2023’s Eurovision champion, including myself and a friend from Finland who’s now worried that their country is going to be be discouraged from competing again. Let’s not forget the videos of Käärijä being disappointed that he lost and his Eurovision friends coming to comfort him.
Asides from that, conspiracy theories started to emerge about the cause of this year’s result. Interestingly, they were pretty convincing. People claimed that the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest was rigged. That this was a grand scheme by the Swedish delegation, and it was planned from the start due to 2024 being the 50th Anniversary of ABBA‘s Eurovision victory. The evidence is on the table and Finland was robbed of its victory. But is any of this true? What this all a ploy, organized by Sweden and the EBU?
Was the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest Rigged?
Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory? ABBA was Sweden’s biggest success story in Eurovision history. Not to mention, ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus appeared during the 2023 Grand Final and claimed that ABBA’s ‘Waterloo’ win “paved the way” for other artists to find international success through Eurovision.
After giving myself 24 hours to calm down, and reflect on what happened, as well as looking deeply at the scores given during the grand final, it is very unlikely that the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest was rigged. For starters, if it was, then the EBU would have noticed and done something about it.
This was evident during the 2022 second semi-finals when six juries participated in a voting scandal, where they gave each other points, according to PinkNews. This led to the removal of juries in the semi-finals this year and the EBU’s Martin Osterdahl making a reference to the scandal during the 2023 second semi-finals.
Also, people who watched 2023’s Melodifestivalen (Sweden’s national selection) claimed that Loreen was the only big act and everyone else was “mid.” There was also a report by a Swedish news outlet that Stolkholm has been preparing for Eurovision 2024. There is no way this wasn’t organized.
Despite how “convincing” the conspiracy theory was and how there is evidence that pointed towards it being true, it’s very unlikely that it was the case. Remember when Greece didn’t give Cyprus their 12 points, unlike in previous years? The country didn’t give those points to Sweden (it gave 6), Greece gave them to Belgium. This just shows that there is no way that the juries were paid off. It seems like people getting mad at the winning result is pretty much tradition by this point.
I still think Finland was robbed
Even if the “Sweden rigged the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest” conspiracy theory isn’t true (which is most likely), I still believe that Käärijä was robbed of his victory. Wiwibloggs reported that Finland was ranked number one during the first semi-finals. Let’s not forget the constant chanting of “Käärijä” and “Cha Cha Cha” during the Grand Final.
The only reason why Finland lost was because the jury gave Loreen more than 300 points during the grand final, despite reported issues during the jury performance. Suffice it to say, this is Sweden we’re talking about. They knew the game and played it well. They might have realized that ABBA’s 50th anniversary was coming so of course they’ve brought in a Eurovision legend to help ramp up those odds for them to host next year’s song contest.
EurovisionWorld.com has a pretty good interactive visualizer of how the points were distributed during the 2023 Song Contest. It’s pretty evident that there is an equal balance of points between juries and public vote that led to its win. Meanwhile, if you look at Finland’s result, you’d see that it received so many points from the public, but there was a huge gap among the juries that led to its defeat.
Remember, there was a 60-point difference between the two countries. If the juries gave Finland more points, Käärijä could have won this year’s song contest. As for the televote, people can vote 20 times. So Sweden may not have received any 12 votes from the public, but the spare 10s and 8s were enough to boost its score.
Käärijä may become a Eurovision legend
There is a saying in the Eurovision fandom, that the favorites are not those who win first place.
Käärijä pointed out how he likes 2007’s Ukraine entry, ”Dancing Lasha Tumbai’ by Verka Serducka. And just like him, Verka was second place in that year’s song contest and remained a legend. Looking at the reception the artist received during his return to Helsinki, and how the crowd yelled out his name during the grand finals, who’s to say that he’s not going to be a legend as well?
Käärijä may have been second place, and Finland put in so much effort to campaign for his victory. But in the end, he’s the people’s winner of 2023, and that’s what really matters.