Vicente Araujo, executive vice-president and development commission President, said: "The development programme in 2010 has been incredibly successful in terms of providing more growth in the sport of beach volleyball and volleyball around the world.

"There has been more investment both financially and with resources, so 2010 has the potential to be the year when FIVB development turned a corner and set the trend for outstanding development achievement."

FIVB invested more in development than any other year in its history, allocating financial resources to the confederations to help national federations.

A new development fund, controlled by FIVB, was launched working in close collaboration with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Olympic Solidarity programme where all FIVB national federations have the opportunity to propose projects for funding through their National Olympic Committees.

The steering committee, responsible for evaluating and forwarding national federation proposals to the FIVB Executive Committee for a funding decision, evaluated a total of 80 applications at its two-day meeting in December while also announcing that a total of $3.7m (£2.3 million) will be available to confederations and federations when it comes to budgeting such proposals.


"We are proud to be able to make available to confederations and federations such a sum for development," said steering committee President, FIVB treasurer and executive vice-president André Meyer.

"This indicates the reach of the FIVB development programme and the investment FIVB is putting into volleyball and beach volleyball to ensure it is more accessible for more people.

"Via the development fund, the federations now have the tools to grow volleyball and beach volleyball.

"FIVB will now assist them to take full advantage for the benefit of athletes right around the world."

Other key projects throughout the year to aid development included the beach volleyball Continental Cup, which launched an additional Olympic qualifying process for the beach volleyball competition at the 2012 Olympic Games and has seen 153 countries enrol to participate in 62 tournaments around the world.

In previous years, the Olympic Games qualifying process was only limited to the FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch World Tour.

The recently completed Asian Beach Games in Muscat was another prime example of the growth of beach volleyball where 22 of the 43 Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) members took part in the competition involving 32 men's and 20 women's teams - the largest participation in all sports at the Games.