Faria Alam

London, Aug. 8: Salman Khan was one of Faria Alam’s lovers, it is claimed today in an interview given to the News of the World by the 38-year-old Bangladeshi secretary at the centre of the sex scandal that has rocked Britain’s Football Association.

In two “exclusive” interviews she has given to the News of the World and to the Mail on Sunday, for which she has reportedly been paid £200,000 each by the tabloid newspapers, Faria has been forced to go into graphic detail of her love-making with Sven-Goran Eriksson, who has been able to retain his job as the England football coach, and with Mark Palios, who has resigned as the FA’s chief executive.

But in the News of the World, there is a throwaway line which may cause some embarrassment to the self-styled bad boy of Bollywood. “Faria had a string of lovers, including Bollywood star Salman Khan in 1996, and a boss who cheated on her,” says the paper.

“She said of the rat, ‘I loved him. I didn’t get involved after that until Mark Palios’.”

There seems no reason why the News of the World should concoct a reference to Salman Khan about whom the paper probably does not know very much, anyway. However, last week, a British Asian weekly, Eastern Eye, ran a front-page story, headlined, “Salman: Faria Who? Bolly star denies fling with FA girl”.

Eastern Eye spoke to Salman who denied the affair. He said he had no idea who she was and had doubts whether he had ever met her. “I remember every friend I’ve ever had so this is all rubbish and that is all I want to say on the matter,” said Salman.

Faria has now resigned her secretarial job at the FA, and in her interviews expressed the hope she will be able to resume her relationship with Eriksson. At one point, she had hoped their relationship would end in marriage, she reveals.

The two interviews give little away about the cultural influences which shaped her life. However, there is a little about her first and only brief marriage in the News of the World.

“As a 19-year-old virgin Faria Alam was forced into a loveless marriage — then beaten for refusing to have sex with her husband,” says the paper.

Faria Alam, who says she vowed never to marry again after the first experience, is the second Asian woman to “kiss and tell”. The first, in 1989, was the former Miss India, Pamela Singh (she changed her name to Pamella Bordes), who sold her story to the Daily Mail for £250,000.

Tabloid newspapers, such as the News of the World, now expect titillation in plenty if they agree to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds, and Faria has left little to the imagination.

Her story is that while working at the FA she was targeted by both Palios and Eriksson. Sex with the former during their brief liaison was unsatisfactory, while Eriksson, in marked contrast, “was a master of the art of love-making”.

“It was all so erotic, so passionate,” says Faria, lapsing into the kind of language which would not disgrace a Mills & Boon novelette.

When Faria quizzed Eriksson about his live-in Italian mistress, Nancy Dell’Olio — the latter had left her husband for the Swede six years ago — he assured her the relationship had died: “The physical aspect of her died for me a long time ago.”

Diplomatic relations between the two women may be hard to establish given Faria’s comment: “I feel sorry for Nancy — not only does she look like a drag queen but she’s latched on to someone who clearly doesn’t love her.”

Nancy “threw plates at him during volcanic rages at their London home” but wallowed in the limelight that the relationship with the England football coach brought. Nancy was inconsiderate enough to ring Eriksson while he was in the throes of passion with Faria at his home in Sweden. “I couldn’t believe it when he answered the phone,” she recalls. “It was HER calling from Italy — and they had a shouting match.”

“Palios, 51, was first to seduce the Bangaldeshi-born beauty months into her new job as PA to FA executive director David Davies,” the News of the World reveals. “But it was 56-year-old Sven who later scored the winner when it came to passion play.”

It goes on: “The build-up to their first night of love at his Swedish home began in the wake of England’s Euro 2004 quarter-finals defeat by Portugal in June. “We had a wonderful dinner,” remembers Faria. “When we finished I was full of anticipation — but he wanted to clear the plates away first.”

Although a top man in a top job, Eriksson (unlike any Indian in an equivalent position) did not have a servant to clear away the dining table. “After he’d filled the dishwasher he led me up the stairs to his bedroom,” gushes Faria.

Any notion that Faria is a coy Asian woman can be discarded. Instead, she could well emerge as the new face of the self-confident and assertive British Asian woman who is not ashamed of her own sexuality. There are not too many footballing bits of gossip. “Eriksson had made his telling pass at Faria in a mood of depression — inviting her to Sweden in a phone call to her London home after the Euro 2004 disaster,” readers learn.

Faria confirms: “Sven phoned me every day during Euro 2004 and was devastated after England were knocked out. He talked about football a lot to me. He said Wayne Rooney was going to be a huge star and was very sympathetic to David Beckham over the Rebecca Loos affair.”