SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Mikel Arana, the new Director-General of Spain’s DGOJ, has stated that the government will uphold its civic duties by formally approving the federal passage of the ‘Royal Decree on Advertising’.
Speaking to Basque media on Friday, Arana underlined that the DGOJ maintained its Autumn schedule, in which it expects Spain’s Council of Ministers to approve the decree passing into federal law by the end of October proceedings.
Spain’s Council of Ministers sees itself currently in the midst of a political storm, as the central government has been looking to implement a raft of temporary federal measures across Spain’s 17 autonomous communities to lower the COVID-19 infection rate – with Spain tracking amongst the worst infection rates in Europe.
Despite facing a congested council, Arana projected that the ‘decree will be signed off within two weeks, followed by its publishing on Spain’s official state bulletin’.
Once passed, the DGOJ will formally apply its ‘grace period’ which will permit Spanish football clubs to finish their existing contracts, as Spain enforces a near-blanket ban on all forms of gambling advertising except for the national lotteries of ONCE and SELAE.
Taking charge of the DGOJ this summer, Arana echoed remarks by Consumer Affairs Minister Alberto Garzon, the government minister leading Spanish gambling’s federal reforms. He stated: “Spanish football club’s needed to break from their dependence on gambling sponsorships.”
This October, Garzon and Arana announced ‘stage two’ of the government’s plans to reform gambling, in which the DGOJ and Consumer Affairs Ministry will launch and develop a federal self-exclusion registry interconnecting all autonomous communities.
Marked as a further concern, Arana stated to the media that the DGOJ was monitoring increases in ‘video game addictions’, but had made no formal judgement on how it will move to handle the matter.
