At first glance, Juninho Pernambucano and Vladimir Romanov have little in common. One is a mild-mannered Brazil midfield player who plays for Lyons, the other is a controversial Lithuanian businessman who owns Heart of Midlothian. The odds are, neither is too familiar with Mikhail Bakunin, the 19th-century Russian philosopher and father of modern anarchism. Yet, in the space of a week, Juninho and Romanov railed against the “established system” in a way that would have made Bakunin proud.

“French clubs are not respected in the Champions League,” Juninho said after Lyons’s goalless draw away to AS Roma on Wednesday. “We saw it when Lille faced Manchester United [and the referee allowed Ryan Giggs’s goal from a quickly taken free kick to stand, prompting a walk-off protest that lasted several minutes], we saw it when we faced PSV Eindhoven two years ago [when the match official disallowed Nilmar’s goal] and we saw it against Roma. It hurts me to say it, but we’re not treated the same as Italian, Spanish or English clubs.”

Romanov struck a similar chord in an extraordinary statement on the Hearts website, in which he implied that the referees and media conspire to aid the Old Firm at the expense of clubs such as his. He wrote – in apparent reference to Celtic and Rangers – that they had been “champions for 40 years while building up the same system for a further 40 years”.

The message is that football is governed – directly or indirectly – by an establishment that includes league officials, referees, the media and the big clubs. In effect, it is a “ruling class”, and that is where Bakunin comes in.

Writing in the 19th century, at a time when Marxism was the rage, he presciently gave warning that even if the Marxists were able to overthrow capitalism, all that they would do is replace one ruling class (the rich) with another (the bureaucrats). Bakunin predicted that instead of the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, Marxism would result in a “dictatorship of the party”. That is because the people who run the institutions enjoy privilege and power.

And, as he wrote in God and the State, “the privileged man, whether he be privileged economically or politically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart”.

Apply Bakunin’s logic to football and the argument goes like this: football, as an institution, derives its power from the big clubs and the big leagues because they generate the most money and attract the most fans. Therefore, they implicitly wield power over the institutions – Uefa, the football associations, the media – that govern football. The individuals at those institutions realise that their privileged position stems from the big clubs and the big leagues and because they want to hang on to the power they hold, they exercise that power accordingly, favouring the big fish over the small.

At least that is the idea. Some form of this thinking has always existed, perhaps because, when explaining one’s failures, it is easier to blame “the system” – a faceless, unaccountable force keeping the “little guy” down – than seriously dealing with one’s shortcomings.

Of course, whether Juninho and Romanov, in their distinct cases, have a valid argument is a separate issue. Juninho was incensed by Mike Riley’s officiating, which he seemingly considered biased towards Roma. Riley booked 11 men, eight of them Roma players (including three for diving), which would suggest to the casual observer that Juninho’s claims are built on thin ice.

As for Romanov, it is undeniable that the Old Firm wield a tremendous amount of power in the Scottish game and that the Scottish media often show the Lithuanian owner in a bad light.

And then there is the old chestnut of referees and psychology. Make a mistake that hurts Real Madrid or Manchester United and you end up on the back pages for a week, derided as an incompetent, myopic fool. Make a mistake that hurts Gimnastic or Wigan Athletic and it is swiftly forgotten.

That said, Romanov has a long list of bizarre and questionable behaviour, such as turfing out three of his best players in mid-season. But the issue here is not so much about the merits of the accusations as the nature of those who run the sport, the power they exercise and the cultural differences that exist throughout Europe. In Latin and Eastern European nations, there is a far greater culture of conspiracy, a belief that things are not what they seem, that there is a grand design.

It is compelling to argue that it is in Uefa’s interest for Spanish, Italian and English clubs to do well, just as it is plausible to contend that it is in the interest of Scottish football for Rangers and Celtic to succeed. Those clubs attract bigger audiences, which pleases sponsors and broadcasters and generates more money for Uefa and the Scottish game respectively. And so, human nature being what it is, Bakunin would argue that the institutions would favour the big clubs because the institutions derive their power from them.

Of course, there is one big flaw in the logic that unites Bakunin and Juninho. Michel Platini, the new Uefa president, happens to be French. To suggest that the body that runs the Champions League should be institutionally antiFrench is excessive. And Platini was elected by Uefa’s member nations with a simple one-league, one-vote system, in which the Spanish or English ballots counted as much as those of the Faeroe Isles or Kazakhstan. If we are going to argue that we need some Bakunin therapy to address football’s woes, we are going to need more persuasive arguments than those offered by Juninho and Romanov.