President Donald Trump has said he will invite the Philadelphia Eagles to the White House to celebrate their recent Super Bowl win, despite rumours that the champions may decline the invitation.

“Absolutely, they’ll be extended an invitation,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “They deserve to be down here, and we hope to see them.”

The Eagles skipped a visit to the White House when they won in 2018, but the team plans to attend the event this year, US media report.

Rumours of the Eagles declining an invitation to the White House created a firestorm on social media after a weeks-old report from The US Sun resurfaced online.

The Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 earlier this month, securing the team’s second Super Bowl.

Sports teams visiting the White House after winning a championship is a tradition that dates back to the 19th Century, but in the past decades some have used it to make a statement.

Only one of the four teams that won the Super Bowl during Trump’s first term in office made a trip to the White House. That was the New England Patriots in 2017.

The Philadelphia Eagles did not go to the White House after their victory in 2018.

The president said at the time that the players disagreed with his view “that they proudly stand for the national anthem”, although the team or players never confirmed that as the reason.

Instead, Trump invited a group of Eagles fans to a “celebration of the American flag”.

In 2017, NBA champions the Golden State Warriors were uninvited from the White House event by Trump after star player Stephen Curry said he did not want to go. The Warriors were not invited when they won the NBA Championship again in 2018.

There were, however, some memorable sporting visits to the White House under Trump. He famously welcomed Clemson University’s football team in 2018 with burgers from McDonald’s, Wendy’s and other fast food restaurants.

Louis Moore, a professor of history at Grand Valley State University, told the BBC that these celebratory visits to the White House are political, even if they do not initially seem that way.

“For some guys [going to the White House] is a lifelong dream,” he said. “But in basketball and football and women’s soccer, it’s definitely political. The idea not to go is political, and even the idea to go is political.”

He added that the event has become even more political since Trump’s first election victory in 2016.

“Early on in Trump’s presidency, teams weren’t going to the White House. Before that, there were no announcements,” he said. “But now you see people announcing that they’re not going.”

Mr Moore said that every presidential candidate since the 1930s has sought an athlete’s endorsement.

“Presidents want to be around winners, and winners want to be around the president,” he said.

Trump is not the only president who has been snubbed by sports teams and players.

NBA legend Larry Bird declined to visit Ronald Reagan in the White House after becoming an NBA champion with the Boston Celtics in 1984.

“If the president wants to see me, he knows where to find me,” he said.

In 2013, Matt Birk of the Baltimore Ravens declined to visit the White House celebration because he opposed Barack Obama’s stance on abortion.

According to CBS Sports, Birk complained of an Obama speech where the president had said “God bless Planned Parenthood”.