What was meant to come has finally come. Having released the date, location and other arrangements for restarting the season, the CBA on Monday announced its guidelines on salary cuts for players and coaches.

The league identified two different stages for the cuts: suspension and resumption. The period from February 1 to June 19 counts as suspension. During this time, every Chinese player or coach who earns less than 20,000 yuan (about 2,827 U.S. dollars) per month will see their pay cut by 0 to 20 percent. As for those who earn more than 20,000 yuan (about 2,827 U.S. dollars) per month, any money earned over 20,000 will be cut by at least half. 

The period from June 20 will count as season resumption until all the games are finished. During this time, teams are recommended to cut the salaries of all players and coaches, but the cut should less than the pay cuts during the suspension period and should exceed 50 percent.

The baseline for foreign players and coaches is a cute of 2,500 euros (about 2,818 U.S. dollars) and the rest remains the same.

The CBA said the guidance was made based on the Basketball Arbitral Tribunal-COVID-19-Guidelines. If the season resumption fails, the suspension will be extended to July 31.

Two of the highest-paid Chinese players in the league, Yi Jianlian of the Guangdong Southern Tigers and Zhou Qi of the Xinjiang Flying Tigers, are both likely to see a drop of around 10 million yuan (about 1.41 million U.S. dollars) in their salaries.

The teams were hit hard financially by the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did they lose game revenue, they also had to pay for players' hotels, daily lives, training facilities and other costs. Cutting players' and coaches' salaries is a hard call but should help teams ease any budget pressure.