Never has so much money sloshed around in British sport: £600m of it to oil the wheels up to London 2012. Millions more will be available north of the border if Glasgow wins the right to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Yet this largesse comes at a price for Scottish sport.

Treasury mandarins demand detailed evidence of accountability. This is understandable, but they are so prescriptive that farcical constraints are placed on how money is spent. Mainstream sports which have fallen slightly out of favour are cut adrift, compromising development, and Scots who are world champions in "unfashionable" sports have had funding slashed or withdrawn, prompting international retirement.

Role models are being shabbily treated. Few outside the competitive arena have an appreciation of what it takes to reach the top, and you can certainly exclude politicians and civil servants from those with a feel for the inside track.

Rowing is one of Britain's most successful sports. But Scots have been cut adrift by the decision to exclude it from the Commonwealth programme for 2014. Other sports likely to suffer financially as a consequence of being left out are basketball and archery.

Scotland has had 31 world and Olympic rowing medallists since the event was staged at Strathclyde Park during the 1986 Commonwealth Games. Iain Somerside is director of Scotland's national rowing academy and the Scottish Amateur Rowing Association's head of performance.

He says the exclusion of rowing in 2014 will cost the sport in excess of £100,000 per year and halt SARA's plans for a national coach.

"It's a major blow," he said. "Fund-ing is a major problem for the SARA. In a GB context, rowing is very successful. Consequently, rowing in England is a top-tier sport with a lot of funding from Sport England. However, in Scotland, we do not enjoy the same level of funding, so it's difficult to play our part in supporting Team GB. Sportscotland places major emphasis on the Commonwealth Games, and sports who can compete at both Commonwealths and Olympics will receive much of their support.

"Our other route to funding is through the GB World Class Performance Plan administered by the ARA in England. However, GB rowing cannot support GB rowing in Scotland because our overall structure is not developed enough. We can't develop our structure and keep pace with England because the playing fields are different. It's like playing with a ball in a tenement back court and trying to make it against someone with the back-up and support of Manchester United.

"A total of £8m was recently allocated to support rowing club coaching in England. In Scotland, we have no such funding. If rowing in Scotland is to continue to support GB rowing at an appropriate level then we need parallel funding in Scotland of £800,000."

"Last year 17% of GB rowing teams which won world championship medals included Scots. But unless we can get proper funding to develop our programmes and structure, we will struggle to live up to the potential Scotland has in rowing podium success. We need sportscotland to provide us with proportional funding to England."

Programmes which SARA hoped would build on such as world and Olympic medallists Kath Grainger and Cath Bishop, "have been set back perhaps eight years".

Ian Thomson, the professor of sport who conceived the lauded and innovative sport bursary programme at Stirling University, questions a different area of sport funding.

Lynn Kenny, whom he recruited to the university golf programme, won the Scottish amateur title and has now played two years as a professional. The deal was that the lottery would fund her for three years, but she lost her European Tour card last season. Despite having successfully requalified this year, the lottery has used that to drop her.

"She is not yet Catriona Matthew another Stirling graduate now a successful pro but she could be," says Thomson. "The university invests over five or six years, and accepts there will be setbacks. We believe if you stick with people, they will come good. I question the way the lottery sports fund operates. They have got it wrong. In golf, in particular, it take several years to make the transformation from good amateur to successful professional."

The Kerr ice dance duo, John and Sinead, struggled for too long to screw appropriate funds from sportscotland. They are fortunate theirs is an Olympic event. Catriona Morrison, world and European duathlon champion, gets no funding. Nor does Bella Comerford, world long-distance triathlon champion. Neither discipline is in the Common-wealths or Olympics, so don't qualify for funding. Morrison has now quit the sport full-time. Comerford is continuing thanks only to the cash that went with the world title.

John Duncan, public affairs manager at sportscotland, says: "Lottery income has fallen from approximately £32m in 1998 to around £21m per annum today. In addition, we have many competing demands on lottery income, particularly for facilities. The challenge for Scottish sport is how do we use limited and decreasing resources to maximum effect."

Despite rowing's assertion, he disagrees that exclusion from 2014 means an automatic reduction. "Sports such as rowing and basketball will feature at the 2012 Olympics and it is important to maximise Scottish representation in those sports," he said. "It's wrong to suggest Scottish athletes will not benefit from UK funding. A significant number of Scots in UK level performance plans receive support through those programmes."

He says sportscotland is aware of competitors such as Comerford and Morrison. "We are actively considering support to sports which fall outwith the Olympics or Commonwealths . . . It's important we consider how we can provide support and assistance to those athletes."