Hendry Thomas has been left "totally devastated" after his move to Wigan fell through.
The Honduras international was due to move to the JJB Stadium on a season-long loan from Deportivo Olimpia with a view to a permanent transfer.
But the Home Office knocked back his application for a work permit.
Manager Steve Bruce said: "We tr
ied to appeal and it fell on deaf ears.
He's totally devastated. We'd got a figure of £1.8m agreed and unfortunately it's not going to happen."
There is no further right of appeal and the 23-year-old will now return to Honduras just a week after arriving in England.
Bruce rates Thomas highly and has not ruled out another move for him once he's played enough games for his country. He said: "I thought we'd unearthed a diamond, in the Wilson Palacios bracket."
Bruce was angry that he had been refused a work visa for - in effect - helping his country qualify for the Olympics.
The Latics boss explained that a player needs to play 75 per cent of competitive internationals to meet visa demands. Thomas, who has 16 full caps, had reached that figure but because he helped his team qualify for Beijing he fell under that marker – Olympic games do not count as competitive matches.
At the appeal hearing, Bruce and general manager John Benson argued that the Olympic qualifiers should count towards the quota of international appearances.
They reasoned that Thomas had often been left out of the senior Honduras side in favour of skippering the Under-23s – Honduras made a determined effort to qualify for the Olympics and are proud to have reached the Beijing Games.
"We didn't get a work permit for a stupid reason," added Bruce. "That was disappointing because I'd been over there, our general manager John Benson had been over there twice... we're bitterly disappointed and Hendry is gutted."
There won't be the same problem with regards to signing Maynor
Figueroa, the left-back due to join soon on loan for the season.
Latics won't be affected by Honduras' appearance at the Olympics. Antonio Valencia, Figueroa and Wilson Palacios can't play as their national team will field an Under-23s side.
The full article contains 372 words and appears in Wigan Observer newspaper.
