Duncan McGuire's move to Blackburn Rovers has fallen through after The English Football League rejected his registration.

The USA striker arrived on transfer deadline day from Orlando City and eventually signed in a loan-to-buy deal. That brought an end to an already remarkable transfer saga, or so everyone thought.

It emerged over the weekend that a paperwork issue meant McGuire's registration hadn't been accepted by the EFL. The club have remained in dialogue with the EFL since and in a club statement on Tuesday, confirmed that their appeal would be heard on Thursday.

After a meeting with the EFL board, McGuire's registration has formally been rejected. That means he will now return to Orlando City after Rovers decided against taking the case to an independent arbitrator, as they did with Lewis O'Brien.

A statement said: "Upon comprehensive review of submissions, the EFL Board determined that the upload of documents into a draft application area did not constitute sending documents to the EFL.

"It also took the decision that it was not prepared to exercise discretion to permit the registration outside of the window, as the EFL Executive had correctly interpreted and applied its Regulations and associated Guidance."

Rovers said they would try to arrange a pre-contact agreement with the Major League Soccer club for the summer. However, they will have to re-negotiate that deal and Orlando are under no obligation to accept.

The forward will now fly back to the United States and return to his club. The MLS season gets underway later this month and so McGuire will still be eligible to play once the campaign starts.

The issue arose when paperwork was accidentally not sent to the EFL. Although everything was completed before 10pm, it wasn't until after the 11pm deadline that the club had realised their mistake.

This already followed Rovers pulling out of a permanent transfer for McGuire whilst the player was flying to England. The deal was agreed, only for an order from the board of directors to cancel all transfers involving a fee.

The McGuire saga proved to be the last straw for Jon Dahl Tomasson, who is negotiating his exit from Blackburn Rovers. He will not be in charge for Saturday's crucial match against Stoke City and John Eustace looks set to replace him.