A debate is raging on Facebook after William Mangion’s song that represented Malta in the Eurovision song contest in 1993 was left out of the rundown of previous Malta participations during Friday’s Xarabank programme.

William Mangion was in the news in the run-up to the election as he took part in the Nationalist Party campaign in 2008 and in the Labour Party one in 2013.

The debate on Facebook was sparked by Labour’s Cyrus Engerer – who is now the government’s consultant on EU funds – who noted the missing song and posted about it.

William Mangion represented Malta at the Eurovision song contest in 1993 with the song This Time. But this participation was left out during Friday’s Xarabank which was dedicated to this year’s representative, Gianluca.

Some people who commented hinted at a possible political discrimination, while others replied that it must have been a genuine mistake.

Xarabank producer and presenter Peppi Azzopardi joined in the debate saying it was just an oversight, saying there were no ulterior motives that William Mangion was missing from the list. He said that William Mangion will be invited to appear live in the next edition.

Contacted by The Malta Independent online, Mr Azzopardi said that Willie Mangion had accepted to take part in next week’s programme.

He explained that each year the Xarabank team adds the previous year’s clip to all the other songs that represented Malta. Last year, Mr Mangion’s clip was removed from the whole lot because Mr Mangion himself was special guest and sang the song as a surprise for Kurt Calleja (last year’s representative).

What happened this year was that Mr Mangion’s clip was inadvertently not added back to the whole lot. It is an unfortunate incident, but one which had no ulterior motives. It is a pity that this mishap was blown out of proportion. Xarabank has never been found guilty of any discrimination in its 15 years of existence, he added.