Sir Cliff Robbed? Franc-ly Unlikely

The build-up to this years contest has already been enhanced with it's fair amount of media coverage, courtesy of Ireland's subversive turkey twizzler Dustin and France's groovy entry sung in English. Today we got an unexpected extra shot of publicity with the revelation in a Spanish TV documentary that Spain's General Franco "bought" the 1968 contest by bribing other countries to ensure victory for Spain. This was apparently achieved by travelling the continent and buying overseas TV shows in return for guaranteed votes for Espana.

This whole idea seems somewhat silly on closer examination. In 1968 the voting consisted of each country having ten jurors couped up in a TV studio. And if the result WAS rigged it was done extremely subtlely and virtually the whole continent's juries must have been in on the fix. After the French entry spurted into an early lead it's votes dried up and it was overtaken by the UK. With two juries to go the German jury gave six it's ten to Spain and a 23-28 deficit became 29-28. At the time this was blamed in the UK on residual resentment either post 1966 World Cup or even the Second World War. What is known is that Spanish singer Massiel performed her song on a popular German TV show just before the event. The conspiracy theories are great fun but just don't hold water. Here's a Spanish clip of the climax of the contest:





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