England captain Martin Johnson's appeal against his Rugby Football Union disciplinary hearing has been dismissed.
Johnson's initial three-week ban, imposed for punching Saracens hooker Robbie Russell, stands.
It means he will miss England's next Lloyds TSB Six Nations game against Wales on March 23rd, plus Leicester's Zurich Premiership appointments with Bath and Gloucester.
Neil Back will replace Martin Johnson as England captain for the match against Wales.
Today's six-hour hearing at Twickenham was conducted in front of independent arbitrator David Pannick QC.
And the outcome is a massive blow for Leicester and Johnson, who had contested the RFU's right to put him on trial in the first place.
Johnson was not appealing against either the fact he punched Russell, or the sentence.
His - and Leicester's - argument was that the RFU did not have the power to effectively punish him twice for the same offence.
Referee Dave Pearson sent the England skipper to the sin bin on the intervention of a touch-judge, but this was deemed by the RFU to be insufficient penalty.
Johnson's appeal was widely condemned, as it left him free to captain England against France at the weekend.
His presence however, was not enough to prevent England slipping to a 20-15 defeat which wrecked another potential Grand Slam.
The player will not now be available until the visit to Wasps on Easter Sunday, before taking up his role as England skipper in the final match of the Six Nations campaign against Italy in Rome.
PA