Students can compete for a cash prize and trophy in the Supporting Opportunities for Latinos’ FIFA video game tournament today.

Supporting Opportunities for Latinos is an organization that seeks to help keep Latino students at NIU while serving the community.

The event is 5-9 p.m. today in the Stevenson Residence Hall, Stevenson Multi-Purpose Room.

“There’s always these tournaments for video games and I’d never seen a FIFA one,” said Sergio Gutierrez, senior communication major and Supporting Opportunities for Latinos president. “Being Latino-based, we all love soccer, so I was like, ‘Why don’t we do a FIFA one?’”

Participants will play FIFA 15, a soccer video game developed by EA Sports, which features more than 35 licensed leagues, 600 clubs, 16,000 players and 41 licensed stadiums, according to EaSports.com.

Although Supporting Opportunities for Latinos wasn’t able to hold the tournament last year, its first tournament in 2013 had 25 participants with about 50 people spectating, Gutierrez said.

The tournament is open to everyone and can be registered for online at Bit.ly/SoLFIFARegistration. The tournament caps at 32 players and the registration fee of $5 is due at the start time of the event. Matches are played on XBOX 360 and players are able to play as any team of their choosing. Home-field advantage is decided by a coin flip and halves are five minutes.

The organization is offering a 50/50 reward, meaning the winner takes half of the accumulated entry fees and a trophy, while the other half goes to snacks for the tournament, Gutierrez said.

The skill level of the participants ranges from hyper-competitive to casual players.

“It’s kind of like March Madness: You just never know what may happen,” Gutierrez said.

Freshman management major Karlos Lugo, who is helping to facilitate and hold the tournament, said the FIFA community members should come out, have a good time and enjoy meeting people.

“I’ve been playing since I can remember,” Lugo said. “My first game was FIFA 07. I consider myself an expert.”

Members of the organization will try to hold a FIFA tournament every semester.

Miguel Marchan, junior electrical engineering major and Supporting Opportunities for Latinos treasurer, also played in the tournament two years ago, but he said he considers himself more of a casual player.

“Video game tournaments are a great way to meet new people and talk about the game,” Marchan said. “Even if you lose first round, you can still have some fun. I love talking about soccer and it isn’t something I get to do often. The tournament gives me a chance to.”