It was the study that we didn’t know we needed until it came along. Man City have been proven to have an incredible amount of fake fans. The Premier League champions and current holder of the “Most Plastic Club in England” title have been found to have a huge portion of fake followers on their social media channels.
Manchester City was founded in 2007. Oh wait – sorry – Man City were founded in 1880 apparently. Who knew? Certainly not a lot of Man City fans. In 2007 the club was bought by Thaksin Shinawatra. A year later the club was sold again, this time to an Abu Dhabi based investment firm. Since 2008, no team in England has spent more than Manchester City. Their billions have bought success, they’ve won 4 league titles since their takeover. Apparently, they haven’t won many social media followers as they appear to have bought quite a number of them too.
A study by Edinburgh based agency Pilot Fish Media has found that 58% of Man City’s 15 million Instagram followers and 33% of its 7.2 million Twitter followers are fake. Of all the brands analysed, the Citizens have landed 3rd in the fake followers table, beaten only by Nike and Foot Locker – at least they’ve got the fakest following of any football team.
What else did we expect from City? They bought players and trophies – why not followers? Whilst we aren’t surprised by the news it does show just how far the club have to go before they catch up in stature with their more established rivals in the game.
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