Abba star Bjorn Ulvaeus has had his say on why the UK awarded the Swedish outfit nul points during the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton.

The songwriter speculated that the Brits might have allocated their points tactically to give their own entrant, Olivia Newton John, a better chance of taking the title.

If this was the case, however, the move proved unsuccessful as the four-piece stormed to victory.

Mr Ulvaeus told BBC Breakfast yesterday morning: "The Brits were the first ones to embrace us after winning, so the jury could have been as cunning as that - [it's] very likely actually.

"Because it's kind of strange they would give us zero points. It sounds like they were trying to do something cunning."

Bandmate Anni-Frid Lyngstad is a good friend of UK entrant Olivia Newton John, and Mr Ulvaeus said the Physical singer "always knew we would win".

Abba's rousing rendition of Waterloo at the Brighton Dome marked a sharp upturn in fortunes for the Scandinavian pop group, who had only formed two years previously.

During an interview featured in The Argus in 2017, Mr Ulvaeus said: "It happened overnight so it was ‘today we’re famous and yesterday we weren’t."

Abba are now one of the best-selling music groups of all time, and are estimated to have sold at least 200 million records worldwide.

They are also the most successful Swedish act of all time in the UK charts, with nine number ones, 19 top ten and 26 top 40s.

Their singles have spent a combined 31 weeks at number one, and a total of 211 weeks (more than four years) in the top 40.

And, last year, Waterloo was named the greatest Eurovision song of all time.

Following the competition at the Brighton Dome in 1974, the song topped the charts in several countries and has since sold around six million copies.

In a pre-recorded message shown as part of a one-off live show called Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light, shown in the year when the competition was cancelled due to the coronavirus crisis, Mr Ulvaeus: "It still remains one of the most genuinely joyous event of the TV era and it is so disarmingly European.

"It also allows you to escape and be happy.

"Everybody knows why there couldn’t be the usual Eurovision final this year. But we hope this show will comfort you in some small way, knowing that it will be back next year."