That was the departure controller. He can't clear them to land on any runways because he has no idea if the runways are clear. His job is to get him to the runway that he wants then either transfer him to the appropriate local (tower) controller or get the landing clearance over the interphone from that local controller and relay it to the emergency aircraft. Of course, in an emergency such as this the crew doesn't really care that much about getting an actual landing clearance. They will tell the controllers where they are going to land then they'll land--clearance or no clearance.