Lotteries union rejects exceptions for the Libertadores
If what CONMEBOL signed with its advertisers does not comply with Uruguayan law, then the contracts should be changed or the final should be played elsewhere. This is the position taken by the Association of Lottery and Quiniela Officials (AFAL) regarding the efforts attributed to the Uruguayan Football Association (AUF) and the confederation to relax Decree 366/017 during the Copa Libertadores final on November 28 at the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo.
The union, integrated into the Confederation of State Organization Officials (COFE), rejects any exception that would open the door, within the country, to advertising or sponsorship by unauthorized bookmakers. Its starting point is historical: it maintains that the country has had its own policy on gambling for more than 140 years, based on the defense of the general interest.
The legal basis it invokes is recent. Article 245 of Law N.º 19.535, from 2017, authorized the blocking of both websites and money flowing to unauthorized games, and prohibited their advertising, sponsorship, and any commercial communication. Decree 366/017 subsequently regulated this scheme and stipulated that promoting an unauthorized company is prohibited.
For AFAL-COFE, the issue goes beyond a single match. What is at stake, it argues, is how Uruguay will respond to the expansion of online gambling. In this vein, it brought to the table what the World Health Organization (WHO) has been warning about how gambling is commercialized and digitized, and placed sports sponsorship among the ways that make it seem normal. Among the organization's recommendations is to end gambling advertising, promotion, and sponsorship within sports.
The purpose of these restrictions, according to the union, is concrete: to prevent unauthorized companies from attracting Uruguayan players and taking those resources out of the country.
The sharpest criticism is directed at the AUF. The trade association maintains that Uruguayan football receives money from gambling taxes authorized and controlled by the National Directorate of Lotteries and Quinielas (DNLQ), and that at the same time it is pushing for the entry of operators outside of that control. For AFAL-COFE, one cannot benefit from the legal system and at the same time ask for the barriers that sustain it to be lowered.
The complaint comes after AUF president Ignacio Alonso asked the Government not to sanction CONMEBOL for sports betting advertising during the final, a request that led to a meeting with President Yamandú Orsi. Uruguay does not grant licenses to private sportsbooks and concentrates the legal offering on the state platform Supermatch, so the brands that sponsor foreign clubs are, in Uruguayan territory, on the side of unauthorized operators.
Tags: Association of Lottery and Pool Officials, Decree 366/017, Copa Libertadores Final, gambling advertising in Uruguay