Rio de Janeiro's famed Carnival bacchanalia hit full stride on Saturday, as hundreds of thousands roared into the streets for one of the city's oldest and by far its biggest "bloco" street party, the Bola Preta.

Five times World Cup winners Brazil will play Australia in a friendly at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on June 13, giving the Socceroos the toughest of warm-ups for the Confederations Cup later that month.

Brazil beat Colombia 1-0 in a benefit match for the families of those killed in the Chapecoense air disaster but Wednesday's game in Rio de Janeiro was marred by a disappointing turnout.

Brazilian midfielder Oscar landed in Shanghai on Monday where the 25-year-old was set to smash the Asian transfer record with a reported 60 million euros ($63 million) deal with Shanghai SIPG.

Former Brazil international defender Alex on Monday announced his retirement from football at the age of 34 due to a serious knee injury that requires surgery.

Barcelona striker Luis Suarez hopes teammate Lionel Messi will follow his lead by signing a long-term contract to see out the remainder of his prime years at the Camp Nou.

The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has announced a benefit game between Brazil and Colombia on Jan. 25, the same day Chapecoense play their first game since the air crash that prompted the friendly.

Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps towered over the 2016 Rio Games, capping an era of sustained excellence that promises to reverberate through the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and beyond.

The pilot in the plane crash that killed 71 people traveling to Colombia on a Bolivian charter including footballers from Brazil had not flown enough hours to pilot commercial flights, a copilot's attorney said Saturday.

Brazil and Argentina are set to play a South American "Superclassico" gala match in Australia next year, it was reported Tuesday.

Bolivian authorities detained on Tuesday the chief executive of airline LaMia, the owner of the plane that crashed last week in Colombia and killed nearly all of Brazil's Chapacoense soccer team, prosecutors said.

Brazil have invited Colombia to play a friendly match next month with proceeds from the game going to families of the Chapecoense players and staff killed in the Medellin air crash, a Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) spokesman told Reuters on Monday.

South American football confederation CONMEBOL agreed Monday to award the Copa Sudamericana to Brazilian club Chapecoense, whose team was wiped out in a plane crash while heading to the final.

Colombian striker Radamel Falcao scored twice as Monaco thrashed Bastia 5-0 to move top of Ligue 1 on Saturday, while French champions Paris Saint-Germain crashed to a shock 3-0 defeat at Montpellier.

Chapecoense's opponents in the last game of the Brazilian league season said they would not play the match out of respect for the stricken club who lost most of their players in a plane crash.

Thousands of Brazilians who had been expecting to spend Wednesday night cheering their beloved Chapecoense football team in its hour of glory were instead gathering at the home stadium to mourn dead players.

Thousands of grieving fans in green and white filled the Chapecoense stadium in remote southern Brazil on Tuesday, singing their team's praises and chanting one by one the names of players who lost their lives in a plane crash a day earlier.

A plane that crashed in the mountains of Colombia, killing 71 people, including members of a Brazilian football team, may have run out of fuel, a Colombian military source told AFP.

Doctors treated traumatized survivors and an investigation was to get underway on Wednesday into an air crash that killed 71 people and wiped out Brazil's Chapecoense soccer team en route to a cup final in Colombia.

The vice-president of the Brazilian club Chapecoense whose plane crashed in Colombia on Tuesday lamented that the tragedy had struck at the cruellest moment.