Joseph “Sepp” Blatter

A rash of suspensions in the EURO League this week has turned a suspicious eye toward Sepp Blatter, the league’s director of player safety and discipline.

On Tuesday, two players drew suspensions:

• Roman Horak, Athens, 2 games for a slash to Prague defenseman Robin Grossman’s ankle
• Justin Faulk, Belfast, 1 game for an elbow that allegedly injured Thomas Vanek of Helsinki in the leg.

The day before, two others drew suspensions:

• Stefan Ulmer, Berlin, 1 game for spearing Bern’s Olli Malmivaara
• Wei Yang Zhang, Bratislava, 5 games for slashing Moscow’s Anton Stralman.

Tomas Zaborsky of Milan, as well as Troy Brouwer and Shawn Matthias, both of Bratislava, were also suspended during the last month.

There was almost a third suspension Tuesday after the game between Helsinki and Belfast. The teams announced that Helsinki’s Nerius Alisauskas and Belfast’s Matt Moulson would miss playing time because both have come down with the flu. Blatter was prepared to suspend Alisauskas for passing on the illness to Moulson, but Helsinki GM Trevor Grimm met with Blatter in private and the league official dropped the subject. It was also after that meeting that the Faulk suspension was announced. Faulk elbowed Helsinki’s Thomas Vanek in the chest and the Austrian forward limped off the ice.

League Commissioner Chuck Massaro said this morning that he will begin an investigation into the sudden increase in suspensions.

“Other GMs seem to think something fishy is going on, so I said I would look into it, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why they think Sepp would be drumming up false accusations. I mean, he doesn’t personally get anything out of suspending a player and the league gets to stress player safety.”

“It also calls Sepp’s integrity into question, which I bet he doesn’t appreciate,” the commissioner continued. “Rose and I work with him every day and I don’t think you could find a nicer guy. It seems he’s never in a bad mood and he is always bringing us gifts. Just yesterday he gave Rose a pierogi-making machine and I can tell you this: that woman makes a mean pierogi without any help. I can’t wait to taste her machine-aided version.”