Sporting Kansas City has signed 19-year-old Alex Betancourt as the club’s first official eMLS competitor. Betancourt will represent Sporting KC in eMLS, a competitive EA Sports FIFA 18 league that launches this spring.

Betancourt, a native of Kansas City, Kansas, will participate in the coveted eMLS Cup that runs from April 5-8 at the PAX East gaming festival inside the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. The tournament will consist of gamers from 19 MLS clubs, with berths in international FIFA competitions up for grabs.

Since entering FIFA’s competitive gaming scene in 2016, Betancourt has earned multiple accolades as one of the continent’s best players. He has won 20 Gfinity online tournaments, second-most among competitors in North and South America, and finished first in the Americas in the inaugural FUT Champions Weekend League for EA SPORTS FIFA 17. He played at all three major regional events in FIFA 17 — venturing to Vancouver, Los Angeles and placing fourth in Miami.

In January, Betancourt was one of two players from North and South America to compete at the FIFA 18 FUT Champions Cup Barcelona after earning a top-64 finish in the world rankings during the month of November 2017.

Before Betancourt travels to Boston in April, Sporting KC fans will have the opportunity to test their FIFA 18 skills against him in a Beat the Pro Tournament later this month at No Other Pub in the Kansas City Power & Light District. More details about the tournament will be confirmed in the near future.

The preliminary rounds of eMLS Cup run from April 5-6 at the eMLS HQ, setting the stage for the knockout rounds on April 7 and the Conference Championships and eMLS Cup Final on April 8. The final two days of matches will be played on the PAX Arena main stage and live-streamed through the conference's Twitch channel and MLSsoccer.com.

The eMLS Cup finalists will secure spots in the EA SPORTS FIFA 18 Global Series Playoffs on the Road to the FIFA eWorld Cup. The top 32 competitors in the Global Series Playoffs will advance to the FIFA eWorld Cup in August, where the winner will be crowned the undisputed FIFA 18 World Champion.