Wigan manager Paul Cook said he felt "physically sick" after the club's relegation from the Championship following Wednesday's 1-1 draw with Fulham.
The Latics were hit with a 12 point deduction after going into administration earlier this month, which meant they needed to win on the final day of the season and hope results elsewhere went in their favour.
It turned out that a win over Fulham would have saved Wigan but the draw saw them drop from 59 points and 13th in the table to second-from-bottom on 47 points.
The 2013 FA Cup winners will find out on July 31st if they are successful with their appeal of the decision, which only kicked in at the end of the current campaign.
"We're hurting as you can imagine," former Sligo Rovers boss Cook told BBC Radio Manchester.
"We've just got to keep hold of our dignity at the minute because it's painful.
"The support staff around the stadium who've kept coming in and working and keeping us going - I feel physically sick for everyone.
"I felt the team did as well as they could. I felt we created chances continually in the second half and we just needed one of them to drop and unfortunately it didn't."
It will be a hard pill to swallow for Wigan given the form they were in but draws against Fulham and Charlton in their final two games meant they couldn't stay above the relegation zone.
The Latics led in both those games and finished the season with just one defeat in 15 league games - that was against a Brentford side that came up just short in the race for automatic promotion.
"I've just got to say how proud I am of the players," Cook added.
"The disappointment that they're [the players] feeling is because they feel they've done something wrong, which is so sad for the dressing room because they've done nothing wrong."
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