Ryan Giggs battles with Nobel winner

Ryan Giggs, the Manchester United footballer, has been pitched against the Nobel prize-winning Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (pictured) in a battle to win the freedom of Salford, the highest honour the Lancashire town can bestow.

The clash, unlooked-for by either candidate, follows a move by the public service union Unison to revive the honorary process and put up Suu Kyi, the 63-year-old Burmese leader elected prime minister in 1990 but barred from office by the military. Apart from Nelson Mandela and the composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, who was born in Salford, freedoms petered out in the 1970s with a series of long-serving but now largely forgotten aldermen. Said Ray Walker, branch secretary of Unison in Salford: "Our union decided nationally to adopt the cause of Aung San Suu Kyi as a beacon of freedom and democracy."

Walker was encouraged from within the Labour-run council to proceed in January, but somewhere in Salford's corridors of power, Ryan Giggs, who was born in the area, emerged as a rival candidate. The 34-year-old soccer star, something of a local hero, made rapid progress and was officially nominated in late summer.

The council's leader, John Merry, batted away the issue yesterday, saying: "To be presented with the award is obviously a great honour, but as these are personal awards, and are not given lightly, it is not appropriate to discuss individual nominations before all the formal processes have been completed." An all-party committee will decide in November, with endorsement then required from the full council. Meanwhile a possible compromise of the honour being shared has emerged. Unison is writing to Giggs asking if he would be in sympathy with this.