Eurovision nightmare chases business leader from board of Wonderful Copenhagen

Bella Center boss decries lack of information in entire Eurovision process

Allan Agerholm – the chief executive of Bella Center who is also the head of the union for tourism employees – has left the board of directors at Wonderful Copenhagen.

“I made the decision a few weeks ago,” Agerholm told standby.dk.

“I could no longer live with the totally inadequate level of information supplied to the board in connection with the entire process surrounding the Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen.”

Agerholm said he was better informed by reading the newspapers than he was by the principals involved in staging the music contest.

“The final straw for my leaving came when the rest of the board rejected my proposal to ask the National Audit Office to scrutinise the entire Eurovision process,” he revealed.

Body count rising
Agerholm is the third person to either resign or be fired in the wake of massive cost overruns connected with the staging of Eurovision in May.

Wonderful Copenhagen deputy chief executive Martin Bender was in August the first victim of the Eurovision debacle, and company chairperson Michael Metz Mørch resigned shortly afterwards.

“I realised that this board was something I no longer wanted to be a part of,” Agerholm told MetroXpress.

“It is no secret that I have not been happy with what happened in connection with Eurovision. I do not believe that the board has been duly informed about the operational and financial challenges.”

Agerholm said he first learned of the terms of the Eurovision loan agreement with national broadcaster DR when he read about it in MetroXpress in July.

“I think that is highly reprehensible,” he said.

Budget exceeded by 3000 percent
Lars Bernhard Jørgensen, who has been the chief officer at Wonderful Copenhagen for the past 20 years, remains in his post. He has previously said it is up to others to judge whether or not he should resign.

READ MORE: Eurovision budget way overspent

The Eurovision saga began when the company behind staging the event, ESC 2014, submitted a budget that failed to include funds for basics like electricity, maintenance and even toilet facilities for the crowds attending the show.

That budget was eventually exceeded by 77 million kroner, with some items costing nearly 3,000 percent more than had been projected.

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