Spat as Malta is left out of charity concert

A charity concert by Ruslana - last year's Eurovision Song Contest winner - at Kiev's Arena Club stirred up a hornet's nest when a mere nine countries were chosen to perform. The rest, including Malta, were left out of the chance to promote their entry in international media.

Questioned about the decision during a breakfast meeting for the heads of delegation, the organisers, the national TV company of Ukraine (NTU), defended themselves saying an e-mail had been sent to all 39 countries asking if they wished to perform.

It was too much of a coincidence that nobody had received this e-mail and it later emerged that the nine countries were hand-picked.

Greece, currently the favourite to win the Eurovision Song Contest, was among these nine countries, which put a slight strain on the relations with its Mediterranean neighbours, Malta and Cyprus.

"We always work as a team to promote the Mediterranean region and despite the fact that both Malta and Cyprus made it clear to Greece we were unhappy and annoyed with the situation, they still forged ahead and took part, despite our absence," Maltasong chairman Grace Borg said.

Ruslana's concert, on Tuesday night, was especially important because it was broadcast live in the nine different countries, giving Greece's participant Helena Paparizou an edge over its competitors.

"We only got wind of this by accident and immediately tried to remedy the situation. As Maltasong we expressed our disappointment," Ms Borg said.

The situation heated up somewhat and at the last minute Ruslana offered to give up three minutes of her time.

"We offered these three minutes to Cyprus since they had been in the fray before. By this time, Cyprus' Constantinos Christoforou was already backstage to sing his song but when he learnt that Chiara had been left out, he refused to go on stage and walked off saying: 'Our friendship with Malta is more important than the concert'," Ms Borg said.

Chiara and Mr Christoforou have established a very good rapport and the Cypriot hunk has already declared he would settle for second best, only if Chiara won the Eurovision.

In the run-up to the contest, Malta and Greece developed a very good relationship and Chiara visited Greece twice, getting good coverage.

Ironically, while this was happening behind the scenes, Ms Paparizou was addressing a press conference where she spoke very highly about "her friend" Chiara and Cyprus.

"All Mediterranean participants are friendly because we are hot people. I'm especially close with Chiara. On her first night in Greece, we went to a nightclub and something happened. Someone said something nasty to her and I felt really bad, but she turned to me and said: 'Ahh, these Mediterraneans, what can you do?' I love her and I wish her luck here," she told the media.

Greece remains everyone's number one, with international bookmakers all predicting that Ms Paparizou's song, My Number One, has all the right ingredients to win this year's contest.

By the afternoon it looked like the tense situation was being smoothened out and the three Mediterranean countries jointly hosted one of the most anticipated parties of the Eurovision, which kicked off at 10 p.m.

Most countries throw parties in the run-up to the festival and the past days have been extremely hectic for Chiara as she tried to catch up with the activities.

On Tuesday night, she attended the party hosted by France, Spain and the UK. Chiara shone when she gave an exceptional a cappella performance of Angel. The crowd did not want her to leave the stage so she sung The One That I love, also a cappella.

Since she had no rehearsals yesterday, she took the opportunity to sleep in until noon and after a light lunch got ready for an interview lined up with Israeli radio.

Today is another day off since the semi-finals are being held tonight, so Chiara is looking forward to relaxing before tomorrow's intense programme of two dress rehearsals at the Sports Palace, in the afternoon and in the evening.

Hamilton Travel made this coverage possible.