Three African American members of Clemson University’s national championship football team have attributed the “racism” and “divisive politics” of Donald Trump to why nearly three-quarters of the team’s black players declined to attend the traditional congratulatory reception at the White House earlier this month, according to a report published on Tuesday.

The players, who spoke to news site the Root on the condition of anonymity, separately confirmed the US president as the reason why approximately one-third of the entire team passed on the visit to the executive mansion, which made national headlines for Trump’s decision to serve a lavish spread of “McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King’s with some pizza” with the White House chefs furloughed due to a partial government shutdown.

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“It wasn’t like we had a team meeting or anything,” one of the team’s offensive stars said in the report. “Players were talking amongst each other but everybody was like: ‘I’m not going to that.’”

A university spokesperson said in a statement that a total of 76 players, about two-thirds of the team’s 119-player roster for 2018, attended the White House reception on 14 January.

But the players quoted said that only 15 of the team’s 57 black players made the trip – and 11 of those 15 were freshmen or sophomores who had very little playing time during the season and feared reprisals over their status with the team moving forward. Only six were even listed on the depth chart for the Tigers’ victory over the University of Alabama in the national title game on 7 January.

As one of the team members explained: “Not saying anything against the players who went, but if you look at who went – freshmen and people fighting for playing time – you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

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All three student-athletes confirmed that Clemson’s coaches, staff and administration neither pressured them to attend nor asked them to be quiet about their reasons for declining to join.

The report comes less than one week after the two-time defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors opted to visit former president Barack Obama during their lone trip to the nation’s capital this season, avoiding the traditional post-championship White House visit for the second time in as many years.