Lee Richardson heat

Row over ‘pussy’ on speedway

Speedway team Unibax Torun will probably have to pay a several thousand zloty fine for an offensive banner waved by its fans.

During a semi-final race between Unibax, a speedway team from the historic city of Torun, and Wlokniarz, a speedway team from the southern city of Czestochowa, supporters of Unibax waved a huge banner addressed to the rival team. The banner, written in English, read: “Lee Richardson – the biggest pussy in speedway world.”

Lee Richardson is an English motorcyclist and a member of Polish Wlokniarz team. During a previous race between the two teams, Richardson had an argument with the leader of Unibax Ryan Sullivan and allegedly hit him. After the race, the team from Torun made a complaint about the Englishman’s behaviour and demanded punishment for Richardson, but he was not penalized. Therefore, Unibax’ fans decided to punish the rival motorcyclist themselves and displayed the offensive banner.

Unibax Torun will probably have to pay a several thousand zloty fine for offending Richardson, but first the Speedway Ekstraliga, the top division speedway in Poland, has to prove that Unibax’ fans had malicious intentions and intended to offend Richardson. The fans themselves claim that they used an English word “pussy” meaning “cat,” with no reference to female genitalia.