Bristol Rovers manager Graham Coughlan says he has decided to put attempts to sign UCD defender Liam Scales on hold.
The League were originally linked with the centre-back at the end of June.
But the chase for the 20-year-old has dragged on into August following rumoured interest from Fleetwood Town and Portsmouth.
Scales, who turned down an offer from Manchester City under-23s in order to play first-team football, elected to join Rovers yet progress on the deal has been slow going.
UCD boss Collie O'Neill criticised Rovers for not being fair to the player over how slow things were after paperwork was blamed for the hold-up, with Scales having missed training the majority of last month in order to avoid injury.
Yet Coughlan says that Rovers have taken a step back due to 'murky waters' in the deal.
He said: "There's no update.
"I spoke to the CEO at our place, it's been dragging on too long, there's too many murky waters and grey areas.
"I spoke to them yesterday and I've mentioned that I'd like to put it to bed and move on.
"It was something that should never have come out, it came out in the Irish papers, people speaking about business that they shouldn't be speaking about.
"My way of doing business is keep your head down, get the business done and then speak about it, I don't speak about it before.
"So that was another disappointing scenario where it's come out and we were getting backed into dark alleys where the Irish media or whoever across there were using other clubs against us.
"I'm not going to put up with any of that nonsense or any of that messing, I've always said I'll pay a player a fair wage.
"He's a good lad, if I could, I would, I've said that all along and I've been consistent with that, but I just think there's too much uncertainty surrounding it and I've decided to take a step back from it."
