Birmingham City boss Alex McLeish has blasted the panel that rejected a UK work permit for Georgia international Levan Tskitishvili.

Made up of Nigel Spackman, Terry Dolan, Alan Mullery and Mike Foster (Premier League secretary), Steve Rooke (FA registrations manager) and John Bramhall (PFA), the panel had to be in unanimous agreement for Blues plea to succeed.

"I was flabbergasted," said McLeish. "The ranking of his country should not be prejudicial to a player of his quality.

"This guy is absolutely top class. When he played for Georgia against Italy in the Euro qualifiers, he was ghosting past people like Pirlo and Gattuso, he's got a bit of everything in his game."

In effect, McLeish was penalised for all the graft he has done over the years in developing his foreign networks, expertise and knowledge of the likes of Tskitishvili.

"All I was trying to do was my job, bring players to Birmingham within our budget," he said. "I had targeted players on much higher wages, on much higher transfer fees, but to no avail. Tskitishvili would have enhanced our team, no doubt."