Confirmed: Eurovision will take place in England in 2023

Great Britain finished second with a contribution by artist Sam Ryder, who now hosts the competition instead. The decision was taken after it was deemed unlikely that the winning country would host Eurovision next year for security reasons, the EBU announced in a press release.

“We are very grateful that the BBC has agreed to host the Eurovision Song Contest in Great Britain in 2023,” Eurovision Song Contest director Martin Osterdahl said in a press release.

Will support Ukraine

The EBU’s decision not to host next year’s competition in Ukraine came a month ago and has since met with disappointment in the country.

“We will request that the decision be reversed as we believe we can meet all demands,” the country’s culture minister Oleksandr Tkatchenko wrote in a statement.

Now the culture minister has said on social media that Kiev welcomes Britain to host the next Eurovision “in the name of Ukraine”.

“We have received promises that Great Britain will engage Eurovision to a greater extent with Ukrainian content and Ukrainian presenters,” the culture minister writes and notes that the decision was made after several rounds of negotiations.

Going straight to the finals

Ukraine will automatically qualify for the finals along with the “Big-5”, the countries that contribute the most financially to the tournament.

It is not yet known in which city the tournament will be held.