ENGLAND take on Germany again today, fearing another defeat in their attempt to become the official European candidate to host the 2006 World Cup.

A high powered FA delegation meet UEFA's decision making executive committee and the German FA in Geneva in an attempt to find a fair way of adjudicating between the rival bids.

The FA team, led by the chairman Keith Wiseman and the chief executive Graham Kelly, are employing a low key approach to the meeting and are not even presenting England's bid at this stage. Today's talks are about ground rules, not grounds.

But given what the FA see as the lack of fair mindedness so far, they are not optimistic of success. There was February's farce of the fax from UEFA reminding the FA bluntly that the German bid had already been endorsed. Then came the farce of the facts as the FA angrily demanded to know where, when and by whom this decision was taken.

Now there is a growing fear that today's compromise meeting is nothing more than a UEFA PR exercise.

With this suspicion in mind the English FA will ask UEFA executive a series of fundamental questions: Are they prepared to stay neutral in this matter given their previous backing for Germany? Can a fair decision be arrived at?

Despite reservations in Germany about the amount of money that will be needed to upgrade their stadiums, the German delegation will be presenting a robust campaign today.