The Battle to Gain a Beachhead : Beach volleyball: Its increasing popularity and new Olympic status have turned the sport’s factions into fierce rivals, each seeking control.

Sand, sun, surf and Southern California. For three decades, that defined beach volleyball. From Malibu to Manhattan Beach, the players arranged impromptu tournaments on weekends, invited friends to watch and competed for pitchers of beer.

Today, only the sand is required. Tournaments are held from Berlin to Bali, and many each year are inland. Some are even indoors.

And the most intense competition in recent years has been among beer companies vying to sponsor various tours, the most prominent of which, the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals, has grown to 30 stops in 15 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, $4.3 million in prize money and a network television contract.

Anyone who follows other professional sports can guess what else has happened. As the money and prestige grew, so did the number of people who wanted to be a part of it, creating a boorish sideshow as players and officials have kicked sand in each other’s faces.

Neither the players nor officials could be described as 98-pound weaklings, which is the reason they entered into an uneasy truce before this week’s important tournament at Hermosa Beach. Qualifying continues today, followed by the main draw Friday through Sunday.

The clash was inevitable when beach volleyball’s success piqued the interest of the Federation Internationale de Volleyball, which recognized it as an opportunity to increase worldwide interest in the sport not only from players but also fans, sponsors and television executives.

The AVP now contends that the Switzerland-based governing body was equally interested in increasing its own power, but everyone initially cheered when the FIVB’s president, Mexican lawyer Ruben Acosta, pulled off a coup for beach volleyball in 1993 that only he was in a position to do--entree for the two-man and two-woman versions of the game into the 1996 Summer Olympics at Atlanta.

It soon became apparent, however, that the players whom fans, sponsors and television executives most wanted to see in the Olympics--AVP stars such as Karch Kiraly, Mike Dodd, Randy Stoklos and Kent Steffes--would not be eligible unless they took time off from their tour to play in a rival one organized by the FIVB.

Required to enter at least one of two FIVB tournaments this year in the United States to qualify for next June’s Olympic trials, AVP players boycotted the first, May 5-7 at Clearwater, Fla., but, under the counsel of their new executive director, agent Jerry Solomon, agreed to play in the other at Hermosa Beach.

AVP President Jon Stevenson said, though, that the players are still considering legal action, claiming that the Olympic qualifying process violates the Amateur Sports Act of 1978 because it favors some athletes--in this case, those who play regularly on the FIVB tour--over others.

“The Olympic trials on American soil should be open to all the best American players,” he said.

In a larger context, the dispute is another example of the difficulties that some Olympic sports have had in making the transition from amateur to professional.

The most-publicized incident involved members of the original Dream Team, who objected when required by the U.S. Olympic Committee during the medal ceremony in the 1992 Summer Olympics to wear the logo of a shoe company other than the ones with which they had personal contracts. They resolved it by draping U.S. flags over the logos.

That was a temporary solution, but it did not speak to the issue of athletes’ rights. Professionals, particularly in the United States, are accustomed through their unions and associations to having considerable influence upon their sports. The International Olympic Committee, however, grants almost absolute power to governing bodies.

As a result, FIVB officials assumed the authority to organize the Olympic tournament, including the qualifying standards, as they best saw fit. Furthermore, they seized the moral high ground, pointing out that they must act in the best interests of what they claim are 800 million players in 211 member countries.

“The AVP represents many of the best players and has done a very good job promoting beach volleyball in the United States,” said Angelo Squeo, the FIVB’s beach volleyball coordinator. “But we have to think about beach volleyball spreading out and becoming popular throughout the world.”

With that aim, the FIVB established its own tour. While the AVP competes only in the United States, the FIVB this season has 29 tournaments--18 for men, 11 for women--in 15 countries on five continents. Teams from more than 50 countries are competing for $3.6 million in prize money.

The AVP did not feel threatened because it still has most of the best and best-known men’s players--until the criteria for Olympic qualifying were announced.

There were two major complaints. One was that players would not be eligible for the Olympic trials unless they played one of two FIVB tournaments in the United States. By choosing to play this week in Hermosa Beach, several prominent AVP teams are missing their own tournament in Belmar, N.J. The other was that the leading U.S. team on the FIVB tour automatically becomes one of the country’s three Olympic representatives and the second-leading U.S. team on that tour receives a bye into the trials’ semifinals.

“It was strictly a competitive business situation,” Stevenson said. “They were using the Olympics as leverage to get players to play for the FIVB.”

Officials from the USOC and USA Volleyball, the sport’s national governing body, went to Paris last year to meet with Acosta, left believing they had concessions to the AVP but later discovered that they did not.

The two groups eventually signed off on the qualifying process, but John Krimsky, the USOC’s interim executive director, wrote a letter to Acosta advising him that the issue would have to be revisited before the 2000 Summer Olympics.

Left with the alternative of going to court or to the beach, the AVP chose the latter. That was due to the wisdom of Solomon, who, as figure skater Nancy Kerrigan’s agent, is no stranger to battles in the Olympic arena.

“We’re still reviewing our legal options,” said Solomon, who became AVP executive director after the players boycotted the Clearwater tournament.

“The issues are so complicated that the general public didn’t care that much or understand. . . .. This is an era of striking baseball players and lockouts in hockey and now basketball, and we didn’t want to be labeled with that.”

Solomon said he is optimistic that the AVP and FIVB can work together, starting today when he and USAVB executive director John Carroll meet in Hermosa Beach with Acosta and Squeo.

As for AVP players, there has been speculation that some teams might perform just well enough in this tournament to qualify for the Olympic trials, then lose on purpose so they can still play at Belmar this weekend.

“I’m not particularly excited about being forced off my tour to play, but I plan to play hard,” Kiraly said. “I can’t answer for other players.”

Solomon said he would advise against tanking matches, telling players that they can best prove their point by dominating FIVB teams whenever they meet.

“The qualifying procedures do not allow the three best American teams to play in the Olympics,” he said. “An FIVB team is guaranteed one place. But we can still send the two best American teams and win the gold and silver for the United States.”