IT is difficult to have any sympathy with Roger Maslin’s admission that he is “slightly disappointed” with the current state of the Wembley pitch.

The stadium’s managing director claims the surface will not be of the highest standard when England take on Slovenia in Saturday’s Euro 2016 qualifier.

But, given that Wembley staged the NFL match between Dallas Cowboys and Jacksonville Jaguars at the weekend, should it really come as any surprise?

Grass pitches are delicate and need time to recover after use, no matter how much money you have.

Any groundsman will tell you that.

The trouble is Wembley is owned by the Football Association and it needs to pay off the £750million construction costs.

That means staging high-profile events at the stadium in order to generate funds, and the highly-profitable NFL fits the bill.

The FA can’t have it both ways. Either it schedules events further apart or just puts up with an inferior pitch when England matches come along.

There are more NFL games in the pipeline, including one just days before the final qualifying match against Estonia next October.

The governing body could, of course, take the national team back out on the road, as they did when Wembley was being built.

Such a move was hugely popular and brought the team to the fans, rather than the other way around.

But, by spending so much money on the project, the FA is committed to keeping England matches at the stadium for a few more years yet to cash in on the potential for 90,000 crowds.

As the saying goes, the FA has made its bed so it can lie in it.