Formula One world champion Nico Rosberg announced his retirement on Friday, just days after winning the long-awaited title. “In 25 years of racing, it was my dream, my one big goal, to be Formula One world champion… now I have climbed the mountain, I have reached the summit, and this feels right,” the 31-year-old German said in a post on Twitter. 

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff praised the “brave decision” while Rosberg’s teammate Lewis Hamilton said he would miss the fierce rivalry. Other F1 drivers also expressed their shock and admiration. Mercedes must now find a new driver to team up with Hamilton next season.

Football fans in Brazil and Colombia paid tribute to the Chapecoense team killed in a plane crash last week, as the bodies of the players, staff and accompanying press were brought home.

A total of 71 people were killed when the team’s plane crashed last Monday near Medellin, Colombia, where they were headed to play in the Copa Sudamericana final.

On Saturday, 100,000 fans, including FIFA chief Gianni Infantino and Brazilian president Michel Temer, gathered at the team’s stadium under pelting rain to pay their final respects as the coffins of those killed were brought in. Colombia's Atletico Nacional, which had been due to play Chapecoense in the Copa Sudamericana, held a separate vigil with some 130,000 football fans on Wednesday. 

News that the plane apparently ran out of fuel before crashing into a mountain has infuriated fans.

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter will find out on Monday if his six-year ban from football has been reduced. FIFA’s ethics committee announced the ban last year, citing unethical conduct following a two-million-US-dollar payment Blatter made to European football chief Michel Platini in 2011. Both men have denied any impropriety with regards to the payment. 

Blatter was the all-powerful head of FIFA from 1998 to 2015, but quit last year amid a string of corruption scandals. Swiss prosecutors are now investigating his dealings while at FIFA. The Court of Arbitration for Sport is expected to rule on his appeal Monday afternoon, Swiss time.

Tiger Woods returned to competitive golfing at the Hero World Challenge in Nassau, Bahamas this weekend after a 16-month absence, during which he underwent surgery on his back.

The 14-time major champion finished just 15th out of a field of 17 in the PGA Tour event, 14 points behind winner Hideki Matsuyama of Japan. But the 40-year-old Woods, now ranked 898 in the world, was unbothered. “It feels good. It feels good to be back out here playing again, competing and trying to beat the best players in the world. I missed it,” he said. 

Snooker world number one Mark Selby won the UK Championship for the second time on Sunday, after beating five-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan 10-7 in York. China’s Ding Junhui ,a two-time UK Championship winner, had made a shock exit in the third round. 

In an interview on the sidelines of the tournament, O’Sullivan said China could be the future of the sport, as he complained of a lack of backing in Europe. "Maybe if it went to China and you found some billionaires out there who would put the sport on and have millions in prize money, you could start looking at snooker as a core sport again," he said. “China is a strong market with a strong economy and they have a thirst for snooker," he added, pointing to the number of young players coming from there.

UAE’s Omar Abdulrahman and Australia’s Caitlin Foord scooped up the AFC Player of the Year awards at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi on Thursday.

Midfielder Abdulrahman was rewarded after helping his Al-Ain side to the AFC Champions’ League final last month, where it lost to South Korea’s Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors. Foord meanwhile beat off the competition to nab the women’s award, following her performance with the Australian women’s team, who reached the quarter-finals at the Rio Olympics this summer.

China’s Wu Lei, all-time top goalscorer at Shanghai SIPG, and Tan Ruyin, who made headlines with a 40-metre goal against South Africa in Rio, were shortlisted but failed to make the cut. 

International athletics body IAAF has extended Russia’s ban from the sport into 2017. At a meeting in Monaco on Friday, a taskforce looking into Russia’s anti-doping efforts said the country had made improvements, but other areas still needed work. A road map towards reinstating Russia could be ready in February, the taskforce also said.

The Russian athletics federation was suspended in November 2015 after the World Anti-Doping Agency said it had found state-sponsored doping on a massive scale. The ban was upheld this year, ruling almost all Russian track and field athletes out of the Olympic games in Rio.