China's basketball league to introduce salary cap for domestic players from 2020-2021 season

BEIJING - Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) league will set up a salary cap on domestic players from the 2020-2021 season onwards following a meeting of club investors here on Thursday.

The league declared in a statement that the move aims at curbing the excessively rapid increase of domestic players' salary and promoting a sustainable development of the league.

According to the plan unanimously approved of by club investors, from the 2020-2021 season, the initial benchmark value of salary cap will be 36 million RMB (around $5.09 million) for a club, with a buffer value of 12 million RMB, meaning the initial salary cap of a single club should be at least 24 million RMB and 48 million RMB at most.

The league also ruled that from the 2020-2021 season, any newly-signed contract should apply the standard, seeing the maximum salary of a single player not exceeding 25 percent of the season's initial benchmark value of salary cap, namely 9 million RMB for the season. Any contract exceeding that amount cannot be registered by the league.

The league has not established the salary cap for foreign players as a measure to encourage more high-quality foreign players to join the league.

The league also announced that from the 2020-2021 season, one club can increase its registered foreign players up to four, with a maximum of two foreign players submitted in the list before every match.

To improve competitiveness and training quality of domestic players, the league ruled that only one foreign player can be on the court at any moment of a match.