Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, 20, and a drink firm PT Bintang Toedjoe jointly raised one billion rupiahs (about 0.1 million U.S. dollars) for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of tsunami-hit Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province, state-owned Antara news agency reported Monday.

"From proceeds of the sale of tickets to Aceh to meet an invitation for dinner and the sale of Ronaldo's memorabilia, we managed to raise 842 million rupiahs (about 85,000 U.S. dollars) and the company rounded off the figure to one billion rupiahs," Joseph D. Angkasa, president director of PT Bintang Toedjoe, said after the fund raising program for Aceh here on Sunday night.

The committee auctioned a ball, a pair of shoes, two sets of the Manchester United's uniforms and a set of the Portuguese national team belonging to Ronaldo worth 224 million rupiahs ( about 23 thousand U.S. dollars), in addition to the sale of tickets for travel to Aceh and invitations to a dinner.

Joseph also said that Aceh people who loves soccer had greeted enthusiastically Ronaldo on his visit to the province on Saturday.

Ronaldo visited Aceh a week after tsunami survivor, Martunis, who was found wearing a Portuguese national team uniform in the disaster, visited Portuguese.

"Therefore we ask people to have their dreams of having a sport facility come true," he added.

According to him, all the funds the committee has raised would be donated through the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Aceh and Nias agency in accordance with the plan to repair sport facilities.

Source: Xinhua