On Monday San Marino Radio Television explicitly denied that it had had any direct contact with Italian singer Tony Maiello, who earlier claimed than an SMRTV intermediary had offered him a spot at Eurovision – if he could cough up 500,000 euros.

And on Tuesday the drama continued as Italian songstress Arisa offered her own perspective on the matter in an interview with Quotidiano.net.

The two-time Sanremo winner, who just wrapped the tenth series of Italian X Factor, makes it clear that San Marino offered her a spot at Eurovision if she could pay an exorbitant fee.

“San Marino asked me to represent them, but it would take €300,000 and I do not have that amount of money to invest,” she said. “My record label should have been my sponsor, but the figures were too high for them as well.”

If she had started a KickStarter campaign, we’d have happily thrown our coins at her!

The already mentioned Tony Maiello jumped on her comments and once again took aim at the Sammarinese public service broadcaster.

Writing on his Facebook page he said: “San Marino RTV should also refute Arisa. Let’s see how many others will be added to the list. She was a bit luckier than me, they asked her for just €300,000. I repeat: you are a cancer.”

Wiwibloggs has reached out to SMRTV and are awaiting a response.

Arisa at Eurovision

San Marino controversy aside, Arisa also speaks about her big dream of representing Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest. Throughout her career she’s expressed her desire to appear on the pan-European stage and she reiterated the point again in the interview. “I think Eurovision would be a huge opportunity, because my music is strongly Italian”.

“If I could sing at Eurovision a song that I care a lot about that’s not yet published, you may see wonderful things,” she said. “It’s as strong as ‘Guardando il cielo’ [Arisa’s entry at the Sanremo Music Festival 2016]. I have not yet been able to get why the audience didn’t react to it as good as I thought. Maybe I was badly dressed.”