Only days after agreeing to help bail out the ailing Chinese Super League, the new British sponsor has had to apologise to the people of China for referring to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as separate countries on its website. The new sponsor, iPhox, also scored an own-goal when it listed the language of Taiwan as Taiwanese and failed to list Chinese as a language anywhere on its site, other points that angered the Chinese Football Association and led to an outpouring of rage in mainland internet chatrooms. The internet telephone company temporarily closed down sections of its Chinese-language site to make changes, and carried an apology on its homepage. 'IPhox Ltd would like to apologise to the CFA and the people of China for the problems we have been experiencing with listing countries, regions, and languages correctly. We are using our best efforts to fix these problems as fast as possible,' the statement read. A spokesman for the CFA said that members of the public notified them of the situation on Monday. 'When we discovered the problem we raised our objections with iPhox and told them to correct the mistakes immediately,' he said. 'They said they would correct the mistake in six hours.' Mainland internet chatrooms were buzzing with criticism of the company yesterday. 'What kind of sponsor is this? It is disgusting in the extreme. We suggest you just close down the Super League,' one post read. 'An apology is not enough. Do you think if you make an apology you can insult whatever you like? What if this happened in other countries? Is China really that weak?' read another. While Beijing considers Taiwan to be part of its territory, the island operates with de facto independence. Several other companies have been criticised for listing the two as separate entities, while others have walked into political minefields for using different colours to distinguish between Taiwan and the mainland on maps. With the ink barely dry on the contract it is an inauspicious start on the mainland market for iPhox, after it paid a reported Euro6 million ($55.6 million) to sponsor a league whose reputation has been severely tarnished by match-fixing. The league failed to secure a title sponsor last season, with companies reluctant to affiliate their brands with negative publicity. Only founded in January this year, the British-based iPhox launched the latest version of its internet telephone software on Friday, to coincide with the sponsorship announcement. At the signing ceremony iPhox chairman Johan Schotte said his company was attracted by the huge potential of the China deal. 'Football being the most popular sport in the world, and China being the most populous country in the world, it offers iPhox a great marketing opportunity,' he said. Company officials were not immediately available for comment yesterday. The first round of the iPhox China Super League kicked off last Saturday.