THERE WAS anger and recrimination at Gleneagles eight days ago when the International Football Association Board decided to ditch goal-line technology at its annual meeting. It was an extraordinary volte-face by the board, and one which cast into doubt the idea that it is the the home nations who have have the whip hand in decisions over changes to the laws.

The astonishing decision to abandon goal-line testing and replace it with experiments involving two extra officials was driven by Uefa president (and Fifa vice-president) Michel Platini. With the Frenchman enjoying the full support of his Fifa counterpart Sepp Blatter, the other board members, including SFA chief executive Gordon Smith, were unable to save the project.

Yet, just 12 months earlier the board had encouraged two companies, Hawk-Eye Innovations and Cairos Technologies, to continue testing their systems. At Gleneagles the IFAB members listened politely to their progress presentations, but according to insiders the decision to abandon the technology had been taken before their representatives arrived in the room.

This despite the Cairos system, which involves underground cables and a microchip inside an adidas ball, having been successfully tested at the world club championship in Japan three months earlier. According to the German company, the system could have been installed in any stadium in the world this year had the IFAB approved.

Instead, Cairos and Hawk-Eye have been left with massive costs which they cannot now recoup. Witnesses say the Cairos executive at Gleneagles was distraught and inconsolable when told of the news. The decision has cost the Karlsbad-based company and its investors a seven-figure sum and could force its closure.

The founder of Hawk-Eye, Dr Paul Hawkins, said his company had lost almost £500,000 trialling its camera-based system. The Premier League, which intended to use Hawk-Eye rather than Cairos, has taken a proportion of the hit, and the English company will survive because of its successul association with tennis and cricket.

Nevertheless, Hawkins is incensed at the IFAB's conduct. "In 2007 it was agreed they wanted goal-line technology and they told us there were four criteria we had to meet," he points out. "It had to be 100% accurate; it had to be goal-line technology and nothing else; the information (as to whether or not the ball had crossed the line) had to be given to the referee immediately; and the information had to be given to the referee alone.

"We invested a huge amount of money, all because of what they decided 12 months ago. To say we were shocked at the outcome is putting it mildly. For a decision-making body it is just farcical.

"One of Platini's points was it might interrupt the flow of the game, but we and Cairos had shown that the information would be given immediately to the referee. Platini also said it might lead to the further use of technology - but one of the stipulations last year was that it wouldn't.

"Blatter said he was concerned about our technology because if a flare went off in a stadium it might get in the way of one of our cameras. Firstly, that's ridiculous, and, secondly, that's the reason we have six cameras. Have you ever known a televised game where a goal can't be shown because a flare has blocked a camera angle?

"The IFAB is responsible for the laws of the richest sport in the world, but it is made up of delegates from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, as well as four from Fifa. It doesn't represent world football at all.

"Had they admitted they'd made a mistake in 2007 and said they now wanted to retain the human element at least there would have been honesty and integrity."

What makes the IFAB decision even more baffling is the supposed solution. Platini wants two extra officials employed at matches, standing behind the line to the right of the goal as it is viewed from the penalty spot. They are also expected to help the referee with fouls inside the box - which is just as well as they are only marginally more likely than the match official to know when the ball has crossed the line in contentious cases.

Both Hawk-Eye and Cairos claim their systems would have definitively given the referee this information via his watch in a split second. Instead, arguments such as the one over England's winning goal in the 1966 World Cup final will continue to rumble on. At least it doesn't happen very often. "We've been through the Premier League archives," says Paul Hawkins, "and there are between six and ten really controversial goal-line incidents a season.

"There were a further ten where there was some doubt, but it was generally agreed the referee had called it correctly. So over a season there would probably be 20 instances where the technology would be used, with about half of these changing the decision the referee would otherwise have made."

Thanks to the whim of one man - Platini - the arguments will continue to rage. A senior British refereeing official told the Sunday Herald that the thought of employing two extra officials just behind the goal-line, "makes me want to vomit". Within whistling circles, he said, it is regarded as ludicrous and impracticable.

Platini, for example, has yet to explain where the extra officials are to come from, at a time when recruiting referees is not easy. The only consolation is that, like the fourth official, it is unlikely to be compulsory. If that is the case, sources have indicated it won't see the light of day in Scotland.

It is a measure of the power wielded by Blatter and Platini that nobody has been prepared to stand up to them on this issue. Two decent, innovative companies have been put into financial difficulties as a result of the IFAB's irrational behaviour; a spokesman for Cairos, Oliver Braun, told the Sunday Herald he was unable to comment on whether his company might close, or indeed what the future holds.

Fifa, meanwhile, were unable to say if compensation will be forthcoming. If Platini and Blatter have any conscience, it should be paid without any undue delay.