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JINAN, Dec. 20-- The Chinese Football Association (CFA) on Thursday announced a set of financial restraints to be imposed on clubs in the Chinese Super League (CSL) and lower professional leagues from 2019. The measures come as transfer fees and salaries have skyrocketed in China in recent years, with the CFA aiming to curb overspending to promote a more sustainable development agenda. The regulations will apply to the CSL, China League One, and China League Two. Under the new regulations, domestic players' salaries will be capped at 10 million RMB (about 1.45 million U.S. dollars) per annum, minus game bonuses. Players called up for the China national team for the 2019 Asian Cup or the qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup will be eligible for a 20 percent increase over the salary cap. The plan will also reduce the salaries-to-expenses ratio of a CSL club to 65 percent in the 2019 season, 60 percent in 2020 and 55 percent in 2021. Salaries include expenses paid to all players in the first team and reserve team squads. The salary cap will only apply to domestic players who signed a new contract recorded by the CFA from January 1, 2019. Those players will sign new contracts under the salary cap when their existing contracts expire, according to He Xi, director of the CFA's club licensing department. The new rules will set limits on the amount of financial expense and deficit for each professional club over the coming three years. The total permitted expense for a top-flight club amounts to around 174 million U.S. dollars in 2019, and will decrease year by year to 130.5 million U.S. dollars in 2021. In the 2019 CSL season, the deficit cap will be set at 46.4 million U.S. dollars. Expenses related to youth development will be excluded from the club's total amount. | 
