No, it is not a shame - it is a core aspect of the SSiW community, which is a community that exists to help learners, and which requires an especially warm, welcoming, safe and supportive environment.
If you wish to be talking in a way which might cause offence to people (and undermine the central purpose of this community) because it seems a shame to make the effort to speak carefully enough NOT to cause offence, then you’re going to need to find somewhere else to do that.
I repeat:
It really is NOT complicated - focus on solutions, not problems, and avoid the blame game.
Rugby is a completely different game. The question of football rivalry is perhaps indicative. Man City only have one rival club, Manchester United.It is really fortunate that things didn’t reach the extremes of Glasgow and that City were the protestant team and United the catholic team is largely forgotten. Nonetheless the rivalry exists.
As a City fan, from the late 80s to a couple of years ago, the biggest stick that was waved at the Reds was that a large proportion of their fan base were “glory hunters”. A ‘glory hunter’ is someone who supports a team because they are successful and win trophies and even switch teams [which is the worst thing anyone can do]. The ‘glory hunter’ is not perceived a a ‘true football fan’ as they don’t understand football culture. There are many chants about how many United supporters do not come from Manchester. Now I don’t come from Manchester either but i understood what they really meant. I started going to games at Maine Road and around the English league at the time when City were struggling against the threat of relegation from Division 1 [what is now the championship or Division 2 for those old enough to remember the pre-premiership era]. So I had plenty of time to understand the culture of Man City and become absorbed into it before the recent period of success started. Being from ‘Manchester’ has never been a prerequisite for supporting City or any other football club, despite what some idiots in Glasgow may say. I am accepted a a ‘proper fan’ at a time when City has started to attract a much larger global following. There are fears about City’s culture being diluted by these ‘glory hunters’, that the atmosphere at games has declined, though that is partly due to leaving the always crackly atmosphere of Maine Road for Eastlands. There are fears of cultural appropriation, that is is possible to support the club without learning the culture of the club.
So, perhaps parallels can be drawn between football culture and Welsh language culture. That there can be a fear of a culture being diluted by incomers in large numbers who don’t get the opportunity for immersion in the culture, because they come in enough numbers not to learn the culture and never get around to learning Welsh [which as we know takes a lot of time and effort!] or socialise with Welsh speakers. Sometimes the incomers are seen not as outsiders, searching for a place to belong or just happen to end up here, because the reasons for moving to Wales can be to escape the oppressive grind and hassle of cities, find less stupidly priced housing or just where there are some nice hills to wake up to.
So I can understand this fear, even as a non-native Welsh speaker. It’s simply the expectation that you are moving into someone else’s home, whether that is a part of Wales, a football stadium or whatever, so you should respect and be open to learning about the local culture. It is simply ignorance of this that people object to. However people should not feel afraid as anyone who isn’t a ‘glory hunter’ will still find a welcome in Wales or at Manchester City Football Club. Or even if you are a ‘glory hunter’ that is also fine as long as you respect the people with stronger connections to the place/club.
Having said all that, I don’t believe that cultures decline because of dilution or behaviour of those outside the culture. A culture declines because it’s members no longer actively seek to retain, move the culture forward and accept new members. As long as the culture is allowed to continue it is no threat to anyone. however sometimes people will react if they feel their territory is threatened. There are people who do wish the language harm, but they are a tiny minority. So anyone who comes to Wales because they like Wales will never encounter any real problem in my view. I think you have to be fairly actively provocative to cause offence. I believe people make far too much of the risk of offending people.
My apologies if I am perceived to be attacking anyone, well except United fans obviously; well no, we love you fools really!