City defo popular among kids in Ireland now. It’s inevitable. If you’ve no connection to a club as a kid, you are drawn to the successful teams.
Jeez. You have to question parenting to allow your child to wear a city top!
But you’re right. In a world where the most idiotic soulless nonentities from reality tv or social media can attract millions of followers, then unfortunately it’s somewhat inevitable that they’ll attract followers too.
I expect for many of them it’ll be short lived because they’ll move on as soon as the trophies dry up. They won’t have older family members or friends, or a local extended and knowledgable fan base to inform them. They won’t be educated on common shared values like social justice or anything meaningful. They’ll just be on-brand lap dogs with petrodollar collars on a short boring leash. I bet a lot of the shirt wearers don’t even watch matches. And those that do have more of a genuine interest will be poisoned by their wretched ignorant forums and paid bots.
But, nevertheless, the numbers of supporters is of course growing and that’s all that they care about. Sadly the cheating has enabled them to grow and that’s why City will always be as utterly artificial as any of the new fans they attract.