Angry Chinese table tennis fans demand apology for flag gaffe

A poster, T-shirt, and hoodie -- priced between US$35 and US$67 -- commemorating China's victories at the World Team Table Tennis Championships in London last week featured a Chinese flag with six stars instead of five.

A later version appeared with the correct number of stars, but they were positioned incorrectly.

The merchandise has since been removed from the ITTF website.

Chinese fans reacted furiously to the errors, with one WeChat article that demanded apologies from the ITTF and Table Tennis England gaining more than 50,000 views.

The errors were also widely shared on the social media platform Weibo.

"Do you have even the slightest respect for China and the athletes?" one fan wrote, tagging the ITTF and TTE and gaining more than 2,000 likes.

"Which country has a six-star flag?" another asked.

Others directed their fury at the Chinese Table Tennis Association (CTTA), which has yet to comment publicly on the row.

"Does the CTTA not care about the most fundamental issues?" a Weibo user wrote.

Others also complained that the merchandise omitted China's world number one Sun Yingsha, who won all her matches at the tournament, instead showing her teammate Wang Manyu.

"They don't know what the five-star flag looks like and don't know what 'MVP' means," another user said.

(AFP)