Faria Alam was born into a strict Muslim family in Bangladesh.
It is reported that in her teens Faria Alam had an arranged marriage
Now famous for her affairs with two of the most powerful men in English football, the former Football Association personal assistant was born in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka.
The daughter of a Pakistani bank employee and his wife, Ms Alam, 39 - along with her two brothers and sister - was raised as a conscientious Muslim.
The family later emigrated to the UK, living in Bradford and Northumberland, where she went to Ponteland High School, near Newcastle.
It is reported that in her teens she had an unhappy arranged marriage to a Bangladeshi businessman, which she ended.
Her parents also split up and her mother moved to Seattle in the US.
In her 20s, Faria Alam moved to London, where friends said she lived in a hectic social whirl of parties.
After doing some part-time modelling work, she took at job at the Football
Association in 2003 as PA to executive director David Davies, based at the organisation's Soho Square headquarters.
While there, she had affairs with both England head coach Sven Goran-Eriksson and the former FA chief executive Mark Palios.
After the relationships became public, Ms Alam - with the help of PR guru Max Clifford - is said to have earned several hundred thousand pounds selling her story to the media.