Abimbola Ilo, Business Development Director, Nigeria

Abimbola Ilo is a qualified solicitor and business executive with diverse practice experience in commercial transactions, mergers & acquisitions, project finance and capital markets. He has consulted for major international companies for over 20 years, with projects on every continent.
 
He is currently the Chairman at Integral, one of Africa’s leading sports management enterprises with market leadership in the areas of Hospitality, Events, Media Rights, Sponsorships and Talent Management services.
 
Abimbola leads the team at Integral and in recent years has secured a number of international partnerships including being appointed as the exclusive agent in Nigeria for the Official Hospitality Programme at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France.
 
In recent years, Abimbola has been involved at the forefront of sports media rights, especially in football, advising broadcasters and rights owners alike, on their respective acquisitions, and also importantly delivering record breaking commercial value through sponsorships and media partnerships, & media rights sales. Abimbola led the team at Integral to secure the media rights for the territory of Nigeria, for free to air television for the Premier League. He also led the team that acquired the exclusive media rights for the FIFA World Cup 2022 African Qualifiers in the territory of Nigeria. His work spans new media too, executing projects for brands specifically for digital sports content.
 
Abimbola has also represented the largest European football clubs as a commercial advisor in Africa, delivering ground breaking regional partnerships in various sectors – telecommunications, banking and beverage categories. 

He has now also made a foray into the e-Sports space, and have a licence agreement with EA SPORTS, delivering the first ever FIFA23 event in Africa in July 2023.
 
Abimbola is a consummate professional and is very well regarded in international circles within the football, sports marketing, media and sponsorship terrain as an industry leading expert.