Olympic Games football tournament opens in Rio in front of tiny crowd

The Olympic Games opened in Rio on Wednesday with a match between Sweden and South Africa in the women's football tournament in front of a sparse crowd.

Barely 3,000 people were in attendance at the Olympic Stadium, which holds 60,000, for the game which kicked off at 1pm local time.

The same two teams, Sweden and South Africa, attracted a crowd of 18,290 when they met at London 2012 at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry.

Just after kick-off a report confirmed 1.3 million tickets for the Games remain unsold two days before the Opening Ceremony, with more than 500,000 of those for the football tournament.

A total of 4.8 million tickets have been sold of the 6.1 million on offer, the Rio Organising Committee said on Wednesday.

The sluggish Brazilian economy and fears over the spread of the Zika virus are among the factors being blamed for relatively slow sales.

Sweden went on to win the opening game 1-0 thanks to a 75th-minute goal from Nilla Fischer.

Later in the day, in front of a slightly improved crowd reported as 13,439, Brazil beat China 3-0.

Brazil's opening goal came when Monica's looping header in the 36th minute somehow found its way past three Chinese defenders and into the net.

Andressa Alves, set up by five-times footballer of the year Marta, hooked home the second from close range in the 59th minute and Cristiane added a late third. Marta limped off injured before the end of the game as well.

Elsewhere, Canada beat Australia 2-0, Germany slammed Zimbabwe 6-1, the United States defeated New Zealand 2-0 and France thrashed Colombia 4-0.