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International song contest Eurovision has announced a tough new set of sanctions against Russia, joining the chorus of Governments stepping up to limit the country’s ability to perform on the world stage.
After announcing over the weekend that Russia would be banned from participating in the 2022 song contest, the European Broadcasting Union has announced a further set of punishments that are likely to hinder the country’s chance of winning the competition anytime in the near future.
In a statement, the Executive Board of the EBU announced on top of being scratched from this year’s event, Russia would face a further five-year ban from using any forms of glitter and can only compete as a pub rock acoustic duo.
The statement read: “In light of the developing events in Ukraine, Eurovision has decided to increase the level of penalties against Russia, in an effort to further limit their ability to take the global song charts by storm.”
“Despite our wish to remain a strictly non-political cultural event, Eurovision must enforce further sanctions to protect the values of our competition, which is designed to celebrate diversity through music and unite a peaceful Europe at one stage”.
Speaking with Russian pop-star and past winner of the 2008 Eurovision song contest, Dima Nikolayevich Bilan (40), Mr Bilan told The Advocate whilst he understood the justification behind the ban, he questioned the ethics of forcing Russian to solely enter the contest as a Sunday-session friendly beer garden duet.
“Look I get it, we Russians haven’t exactly made many international friends this week, but banning us from glitter and forcing us to compete as an acoustic duo, I think that’s a step too far!”
“How can we compete with those zany Swedes who’ll probably roll out a 17-piece Opera-Ska band that performs underwater, when we’re forced to sit on a milk crate and bash out an acoustic rendition of ’Everlong’ by the Foo Fighters.
“Everyone knows that song needs drums, we won’t stand a chance!”
More to come.
