Kiss-and-sell deals set to net Alam #500,000

Faria Alam, the secretary whose relationships with the England coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson, and his former employer, Mark Palios…

Faria Alam, the secretary whose relationships with the England coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson, and his former employer, Mark Palios, have plunged the Football Association in England into chaos, has agreed to sell her story for £500,000.

Alam resigned last night as the FA board met to discuss the fallout from its decision to instruct lawyers to issue a statement on her behalf denying the affair with Eriksson.

After three weeks, during which details of the affairs were leaked via friends, acquaintances and former colleagues, Alam is understood to have agreed deals with two Sunday newspapers and ITV.

The News of the World and the Mail on Sunday have agreed to pay an estimated £200,000 each for interviews with her, and ITV are thought to have offered £100,000 for exclusive television rights.

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Last night, however, PR consultant Max Clifford who has been advising Alam insisted that the secretary was not seeking revenge on Eriksson over their relationship.

"She is very fond of Sven," said Clifford in an interview with Sky Sports. "To suggest she's looking to get revenge on Sven is the total opposite of the truth.

"She is very fond of him, up until the last few days she was talking to him regularly.

"She feels very unhappy about how she's been treated, certainly not by Sven, but all will become apparent at the weekend.

"Because of the huge media interest she will be making a lot of money from the stories, she could have made a lot last week but turned it down because she wanted to see what happened in her meeting with the FA and see what happened with Sven this week.

"But taking everything into consideration she's decided she has to resign and get on with her life and try and put this whole thing behind her."

Clifford, who has helped British newspapers to secure many notorious kiss-and-tell stories, brokered the media deals for Alam and yesterday revealed she would resign her post at the FA after admitting that he would be representing her in her dealings with the media.

He said he had become concerned about the number of people advising Alam, who has been on annual leave since the story of her affair with Eriksson broke in the News of the World almost three weeks ago.

"I have agreed to represent Faria," said Clifford yesterday. "Any issues we had, have now been sorted out and it's being done my way. She wants to give her version of what has happened to her, as opposed to everybody else's version, in her own words.

"She has decided to talk to the media for three reasons - one is the money, the other is the fact that a lot of her close friends have misrepresented her, and the third is the way the FA has treated her.

"I think she's a lovely and very intelligent woman, and her story gives a unique insight into those at the top of football in this country. She's a very bright girl and they're very silly people."

Clifford, who had predicted that Alam could make £1 million from selling her story, said that such a sum was still achievable if there were magazine and syndication deals in Scandinavia as well as Asia.

Several tabloid newspapers have already quoted the words of friends of Alam, with the Sun using a double-page spread last week to print the disclosures of Ambreen Sheikh, whom the newspaper described as Alam's "closest pal" but Alam has not yet given her side of the story directly.

Despite Clifford's assertion that he had only recently started to represent Alam, it would be no surprise if his involvement had begun before yesterday. The drip-drip of revelations through friends and acquaintances, culminating in a personal account, is a well-worn Clifford technique, and was employed to great effect when Rebecca Loos revealed details of her affair with David Beckham.