Newspaper headlines: 'King of football' dies and 'no magic wand for pay rises'

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By Staff
BBC News
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In a sign of the Brazilian footballing icon's global stature, Pele is on every front page and a number of the papers include supplements dedicated to the striker, following his death aged 82.

"The best" says the Daily Mirror's headline, while The Sun calls Pele "the king of football". The Daily Mail describes him as a "genius who defined the beautiful game" and the Daily Star says he was "the greatest footballer of all time".

For the Daily Express, he is "immortal" and the Financial Times describes Pele as one of the "most popular and recognisable athletes of the twentieth century". Writing in the Guardian, former chief sports writer Richard Williams says his unique appeal lay in making everyone smile as they cheered his exploits.

Meanwhile, the government believes trade unions will have to back down in their fight for higher pay because they will run out of money to support workers during walkouts, according to the Times. The paper says unions typically offer members about £50 a day in strike pay, which means that industrial action is costing them millions of pounds. But the head of the Royal College of Nursing, Pat Cullen, said such comments from ministers would embolden her members even more.

An editorial in The Sun says the current surge of industrial action is politically motivated. The paper says the new head of the TUC Paul Nowak accepts that a Labour government he looks forward to would not be able to wave a magic wand to sort out current economic problems, but at the same time expects Tory ministers to do just that.

The Guardian has compiled figures which it says show that one in 10 Conservative peers has given more than £100,000 to the party. The paper reports the rate of donors given peerages appears to have picked up over the past six years, under Theresa May and Boris Johnson. A Tory spokesperson said peerages were given for contributions to civic life.

According to the Daily Express, Britain and Albania are trying to agree a date in the New Year when the first group of Albanian prisoners will be deported back to the country. The paper says about 50 have volunteered to be transferred; eventually, it says, hundreds could be sent to serve the rest of their sentences there, saving millions of pounds of UK taxpayers' money and making space in overstretched jails.

There are opposing views on whether Britain should join several countries requiring travellers from China to show a negative Covid test, because of the rapid spread of the virus there.

The Daily Mirror says the UK had one of the highest Covid death tolls because Boris Johnson was slow to bring in check at borders, while ministers are now failing to learn from their mistakes. But the Daily Telegraph questions if restrictions on arrivals from China would be proportionate.