Wigan Athletic boss Steve Bruce admits he's frustrated by the complications that come with signing foreign players.
The club lost an appeal on Thursday to allow 23-year-old Honduran midfielder Hendry Thomas, who plays for Olimpia in his homeland, to join them.
That decision annoyed Bruce, who is now back to square one in his search for reinforcements in central midfield, where he currently only has Michael Brown and Thomas' international team-mate Wilson Palacios.
"We are disappointed because we did our homework over the summer for Hendry Thomas, a midfielder who plays alongside Palacios on the Honduras team," said Bruce.
"We are absolutely devastated we didn't get that, we lost it on appeal yesterday. We had that one pencilled in as one of our midfield players so we will have to look again.
"We have been kicked in the teeth. It saddens me for all the work the club has done. You get all that done and because of a little red tape we have lost out.
"I only have two recognised central midfielders in Brown and Palacios so we will have to look to strengthen that area."
Bruce said defensive midfielder Thomas was not granted a work permit because he had not played the required number of matches for his country.
However, the Latics felt they had a genuine case as Thomas is captain of Honduras' Olympic team, which is playing in Beijing next month, and had been playing mostly for that side.
Bruce said: "Because he played in the Olympic team, he didn't play in the national team. That ended up counting against him as it is not a [FIFA] registered competition like a World Cup.
"He played for the Olympic team because the Honduras national association ploughed all their efforts into that because it took precedence because they had never been to the Olympics before.
"That stopped him playing for the [full] national team and you need appearances for the national team to meet the criteria."