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Fans of Paraguay’s Cerro Porteno take part in stadium reconstruction

Paraguayan football club Cerro Porteno’s fans are taking part in the reconstruction of the club’s stadium in Asuncion.

The 70 members of the fans’ organisation are working as unskilled day labourers to help complete the 43,000-capacity stadium, said to be costing upwards of $15m (£11.7m/€13.2m).

“I’m not doing it for the money. I just want my name to be recorded as a Cerro fan who built the stadium,” supporter Rodrigo Millan told AFP.

The AFP reported that during a visit to the site, a group of workers that were laying turf on the pitch lined up to sing the team’s anthem.

“When I die, let my casket be painted blue and red,” they sang.

“They bring a lot of joy,” said the project’s chief architect, Alfredo Angulo, who trained the fans so they could join the 500 workers on the site.

“They lift the spirits of the staff and they infect even the ordinary labourers with their love of the club.”

According to AFP, the workers are trained as assistant builders, cleaners, and security guards and tend to the turf for a daily wage.

The initiative “seeks to break the often negative view that society has of the fans’ organisations,” said the club’s general manager Fabian Bruzzone.

“I know many football stadiums in the world,” said Paraguay international Nelson Haedo Valdez. “But I have never seen one where the fans take part in the building like this.”

Cerro Porteno was founded in 1912 and has won 31 Paraguayan league titles.

Image: TBWA