The €16 Million Eurovision Conspiracy That Collapsed When Finland Actually Lost

A viral conspiracy theory claiming that the Eurovision Song Contest was secretly rigged in Finland's favour spread widely in the days leading up to this year's final in Vienna. The post, which first appeared on TikTok and later migrated to X, amassed more than 1 million views. It presented itself as testimony from a Eurovision "security guard" who claimed to have inside knowledge.

the anonymous post alleged. According to the claim, Finland had offered organisers around €16 million to secure victory. The account behind the post had no verifiable connection to Eurovision, no previous posts, and provided no screenshots, documents, or any evidence linking itself to the competition's organisers.

Then the final took place. Finland – a favourite in betting markets and among fans – finished in sixth place once the televote was announced. Bulgarian pop star Dara took home the trophy. A spokesperson for the Geneva-based European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises the contest, told fact-checkers before the grand final that the allegation was "false information."

The claim directly contradicts how the EBU's voting system operates. Eurovision's final result combines public televotes with rankings submitted by professional juries from each participating country. National juries consist of seven music industry professionals who rank performances during a dress rehearsal before the live final. Public viewers vote for their favourite acts during the final via phone, text message, or online – all for a fee – though they cannot vote for their own country. Votes are processed through telecom operators, payment providers, and national voting partners before being independently verified.

This year, in response to concerns raised by broadcasters over promotional campaigns for acts, the EBU announced it would reduce the number of votes viewers can cast from 20 to 10 and introduced new rules discouraging "government-backed campaigns."

The Finland claim was not the only false allegation to circulate. Euronews' fact-checking team, The Cube, found multiple posts on social media claiming the competition was rigged and alleging various countries had paid to win. After Dara was announced as the winner, users on Reddit and X spread unsupported claims that Israel had funded the Bulgarian act, among others.

Eurovision acts are primarily funded by their country's national public service broadcaster. Publicly available reports show that Bulgarian National Television (BNT), together with Dara's Bulgarian record label Virginia Records, organised and supported Bulgaria's participation – including its national selection process, staging, and entry costs. Dara collaborated with international writers and producers for her winning song "Bangaranga." Fact-checkers found no credible evidence of undisclosed Israeli government funding for Bulgaria's entry.

Most of the allegations emerged during heightened scrutiny over the contest's voting system and promotional campaigns. In the past two years, investigations by the New York Times and the EBU's own fact-checking unit, Eurovision News Spotlight, have examined Israeli government-backed promotional campaigns encouraging viewers in participating countries to vote for Israel's entry. Israeli broadcaster KAN said it believed no Eurovision rules had been broken. Additional government support and promotion of Eurovision acts – beyond what state-backed broadcasters provide – is not unusual, with tourism boards and cultural institutions often sponsoring artists' promotional tours and publicity efforts.

The EBU said it remained confident that the 2025 contest had delivered a "valid and robust result" despite complaints from several public broadcasters over televoting transparency and promotional campaigns. The EBU later tightened its rules on the number of public votes and introduced measures discouraging what it called "disproportionate" government-backed campaigns.

This is not the first time the EBU has changed the competition's rules amid controversy. In 2022, it removed jury votes during the second semi-final from six countries – Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, and San Marino – after identifying what it described as "irregular voting patterns." That controversy, denied by the broadcasters involved, led organisers to temporarily remove professional juries from the semi-finals between 2023 and 2025. Jury votes in the semi-finals were reintroduced for this year's competition.

None of the controversies surrounding Eurovision's voting system have produced credible evidence that the winner is secretly predetermined by countries offering the EBU money in exchange for victory. Yet the conspiracy theories keep coming. The algorithms reward outrage. The anonymous "security guard" has vanished. And the truth – that Bulgaria won fair and square, that Finland placed sixth, and that no TikTok insider knows the outcome before the votes are counted – is simply not as clickable. But it remains, for the record, the truth. The EBU has its flaws. Rigging the vote is not among them.