The Italian national broadcaster RAI held a press conference earlier today in San Remo, where one of the topics was also Eurovision. The Executive Supervisor of the Sanremo music festival (which starts tomorrow), Mr. Claudio Fasulo, stated that RAI made a suggestion to EBU, to invite all the 2020 entrants who are not re-selected for 2021 as special guests in this year’s Eurovision, and added that this idea was refused by both the EBU, as well as the Dutch national broadcaster.

Mr. Fasulo stated:

We officially asked the EBU to have Diodato and the other 2020 artists who will not return, to be invited to Rotterdam as part of an interval act. The EBU and the host broadcaster just said “no”.

Apart from Diodato, a number of artists selected for the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest will not be returning, and a couple of artists are yet to be announced. So far we know that, apart from Diodato, Ulrikke from Norway, Aksel from Finland, Sandro from Cyprus, Ben Dolic from Germany, Arilena Ara from Albania, VAL from Belarus, Ben & Tan from Denmark, Damir Kedžo from Croatia, Tom Leeb from France, as well as Elisa from Portugal are being replaced by other acts in this year’s Contest.

The national broadcasters of Russia, Armenia, and Poland have neither confirmed nor declined whether they will keep their selected artists from 2020 for this year’s Contest as well or not. The Mamas and Uku Suviste are still in the run in their own national selections, and they thus have a chance to be selected for the 2021 Contest as well.

Sanremo starts tomorrow evening, and will conclude on Saturday evening when the winner will be chosen, and will be given the option to represent Italy in the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest, which takes place on the 18th, 20th and 22nd of May in Rotterdam.