Eurovision Song Contest 2026

Other news this morning is that a UN commission of inquiry has concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Never mind individual countries, but how can the EBU be ok with this? Surely they know this is bad, and why (just like with Russia) is it only countries threatening to pull out that spurs them into action?

If the EBU announced in mid-December; "Israel stays in no matter what", you could see a raft of further withdrawals and the Contest would quickly become unviable. My best guess is we won't see them next May and the Contest will proceed as normal. Germany having a hissy fit and even withdrawing wouldn't really matter - there would be very little sympathy for them.

The other issue regarding withdrawals is…does this mean it'll now be more expensive for those countries that remain? Will participation fees rise dramatically? Spain is Big Five and the Netherlands is apparently the sixth-biggest contributor. Albania is in major financial trouble, an increase in participation fees will likely see them out too, and potentially others.

That would be my understanding, yes. If Spain, NL and several others withdrew, the participation fee for all other broadcasters would automatically shoot up.

I do think though the level of controversy would go through the roof if the EBU tried to keep Israel in despite all the protests. You could easily see a further five or six countries announce they were withdrawing in sympathy with their broadcasting colleagues.

Or withdraw because their budget doesn't stretch to increased participation fees to fund the shortfall from Spain etc.

Technically the Eurovision Song Contest was very much meant as a political event. It was designed as part of the Eurovision brand as a way to foster European unity and build a sense of shared heritage.

Israel isn't even in Europe.

If Australia can enter then why not all the Americas considering the European descendant link is probably what got Oz in.

End of the day so long as Germany wants Israel there I don't think it will make any difference even if 15 countries dropped out as I said before.

The Germans won't be retiring their guilt complex for Eurovision, that's for sure.

They are. Australia have 3 associate members of the EBU, ABC, FreeTV and SBS. The Untied States have 6 associate members, television broadcasters ABC, CBS, NBC, and radio broadcasters APM, NPR, and WFMT

But Australians are nuts about Eurovision so it just made sense to invite them at the time.

@tayto lover

Why are we stopping at Eurovision? Should the FAI and RSFF similarly pull out of the World Cup qualifiers due to Israeli participation?

https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/opinion-eurovision-decision-israel-impacts-rules-6819243-Sep2025/

Johnny Fallon of thejournal.ie explains pretty well why the EBU can't simply kick KAN out.

His reference to the Russian broadcasters is a little bit inaccurate, what happened was they were found to be spreading misinformation, not necessarily found to be too close to the government of Russia.

I fully accept a miracle needs to happen for us to qualify for the world cup but where do you draw the line? If Ireland and Israel got into a playoff spot after finishing 2nd in their respective groups and were drawn together, should we drop out of the tournament?

Then do you also refuse to compete in any competition that has Saudi or Qatari participation due to their ongoing human rights abuses? The number of competitions we can partake in starts to get very narrow

I think they 'will' be kicked out in due course and the situation won't arise. Israel is rapidly heading towards pariah state status : we're probably going to see the point soon enough where teams and individual athletes will simply refuse to compete against them. One would imagine they are probably the most hated regime on the planet right now.