Dutch contestant Joost Klein has been expelled from Saturday\u2019s Eurovision Song Contest final after a complaint by a member of the production crew, organizers said, adding to the headaches for host Sweden as it also grapples with anti-Israel protests.
\nThe European Broadcasting Union (EBU) had said on Friday it was investigating an incident involving Klein, 26, whose quirky song \u201cEuropapa\u201d had made him one of the favorites.
\nThe 68th version of the contest, normally a festival of catchy songs and tongue-in-cheek kitsch, is taking place amid protests in host city Malmo over the participation of Israel, due to its war in Gaza.
\nSwedish police earlier on Saturday said a man had been questioned for threatening a Eurovision employee inside Malmo Arena following the competition\u2019s second semi-final on Thursday.
\nThe person was not detained, police said without naming the individual, adding the matter had been referred to a prosecutor.
\n\u201cWhile the legal process takes its course, it would not be appropriate for him (Joost) to continue in the Contest,\u201d the EBU said in a statement.
\nA representative for Klein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
\nDutch broadcaster AVROTROS said in an emailed statement that it was \u201cshocked\u201d the EBU\u2019s decision and considered it \u201cdisproportionate\u201d.
\nBookmakers have Croatia\u2019s Baby Lasagna, real name Marko Puri\u0161i\u0107, 28, with \u201cRim Tim Tagi Dim\u201d, a song about a young man who leaves home aspiring to become a \u201ccity boy\u201d with better opportunities, as front-runner to win the contest.
\nIsraeli solo artist Eden Golan, 20, and her song \u201cHurricane\u201d also qualified for Saturday\u2019s final, with betting odds on Friday showing her as one of the leading contenders too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dutch contestant Joost Klein has been expelled from Saturday\u2019s Eurovision Song Contest final after a complaint by a member of the production crew, organizers said, adding to the headaches for host Sweden as it also grapples with anti-Israel protests. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) had said on Friday it was investigating an incident involving Klein, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21557,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21550\/revisions\/21557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}