We argue that the massive Yang-Mills model of Kunimasa and Goto, Slavnov, and Cornwall, in which massive gauge vector bosons are introduced in a gauge-invariant way without resorting to the Higgs mechanism, may be useful for studying diffractive scattering of strongly interacting particles. We perform in this model explicit calculations of S-matrix elements between quark states, at tree level, one loop, and two loops, and discuss issues of renormalisability and unitarity. In particular, it is shown that the S-matrix element for quark scattering is renormalisable at one-loop order and is only logarithmically non-renormalisable at two loops. The discrepancies in the ultraviolet regime between the one-loop predictions of this model and those of massless QCD are discussed in detail. Also, some of the similarities and differences between the massive Yang-Mills model and theories with a Higgs mechanism are analysed at the level of the S-matrix. Finally, we briefly discuss the high-energy behaviour of the leading-order amplitude for quark-quark elastic scattering in the diffractive region. The above analysis sets up the stage for carrying out a systematic computation of the higher order corrections to the two-gluon exchange model of the Pomeron using massive gluons inside quantum loops.