Administrators have failed in a bid to have Hearts’ transfer embargo lifted.
The Edinburgh club were hit with an automatic 15-point penalty and a player registration ban when they suffered an insolvency event in June last year.
A company voluntary arrangement has been accepted but the club’s exit from administration cannot be completed until the Foundation of Hearts, the prospective owners, secure a deal with the people in charge of Lithuanian majority shareholder UBIG.
Despite that, assistant manager Billy Brown last week called for the sanctions to be lifted as he warned manager Gary Locke might have to field schoolboys in the first team.
But joint-administrator Bryan Jackson was given little encouragement from the Scottish Professional Football League.
Jackson told BBC Scotland: “We’ve put all the arguments forward and, not surprisingly, they’ve all been rejected.
“Nothing is going to change with regard to the sanctions and I feel really sorry for Gary in that we can’t do anything to help him.
“Those restrictions are there, we’ve tried and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Hearts fell 19 points adrift on Sunday following a 2-0 home defeat by Partick Thistle but Locke’s job is safe.
“We’re sticking with Gary and hopefully Gary’s sticking with us,” Jackson said.
“He’s shown fantastic loyalty since we went into administration and we have to show the same to him.
“Everybody knows he’s a Hearts man through and through; quite frankly to even think of changing management at this time, with the squad of players we’ve got, you’d have to be some kind of miracle worker.
“Gary’s doing incredibly well with the resources that he has. Anybody else coming in, they’re going to have the same resources.”