Organisers have confirmed that an all-conquering school football team will miss out on a major annual competition this year, rejecting a plea from the institution to approve its participation.

The School Sports Federation of Hong Kong, China on Saturday said its council overseeing secondary school programmes decided to deny Yan Chai Hospital Tung Chi Ying Memorial Secondary School the chance to compete, after it missed the application deadline due to administrative negligence.

The principal of the school in Ma On Shan, Wong Yau-kit, had previously made a teary appeal for leniency, saying pupils shouldn't be punished for a teacher's mistake.

But the federation's secondary school sports council was not swayed following a meeting with the school on Friday, insisting its explanations were not good enough.

"Following discussions and references to similar cases in the past, the council unanimously agreed to not accept the late application from Tung Chi Ying," it said.

The federation said it was sorry to see the school miss out, but noted that it has to be fair.

"The federation would like to reiterate that it has not suspended Tung Chi Ying from competing. The school can still sign up to compete in other divisions, as well as competitions that have not yet closed for applications," it said.

The secondary school earlier explained that the registration had been the responsibility of the former head of physical education, who was the only person with the credentials to log into a system to sign up between July 22 and September 2.

It also said the former head was uncooperative and had told the school that the password for the system was lost.

But the federation, in response, said it processed the school's application to reset the password in August, which was confirmed by the institution.

The decision by the sports body meant the football powerhouse, who are the 17-time reigning Sha Tin and Sai Kung champions and six-time winners of the Jing Ying tournament, would not be able to defend their title this season.