  We discuss exclusive central diffractive production of scalar ($f_{0}(980)$,
$f_{0}(1370)$, $f_{0}(1500)$), pseudoscalar ($\eta$, $\eta'(958)$), and vector
($\rho^{0}$) mesons in proton-proton collisions. We show that high-energy
central production of mesons could provide crucial information on the spin
structure of the soft pomeron. The amplitudes are formulated in terms of
effective vertices respecting standard rules of Quantum Field Theory and
propagators for the exchanged pomeron and reggeons. For the scalar and
pseudoscalar meson production, in most cases, two lowest orbital angular
momentum - spin couplings are necessary to describe WA102 experimental
differential distributions. Different pomeron-pomeron-meson tensorial
(vectorial) coupling structures are possible in general. For the $\rho^{0}$
production the photon-tensor pomeron/reggeon exchanges are considered and the
coupling parameters are fixed from the H1 and ZEUS experimental data of the
$\gamma p \to \rho^{0} p$ reaction. We present first predictions of this
mechanism for the $pp \to pp (\rho^{0} \to \pi^{+} \pi^{-})$ reaction being
studied at COMPASS, RHIC, Tevatron, and LHC. We analyse influence of the
experimental cuts on integrated cross section and various differential
distributions for produced mesons.
