Efforts to modernize Southeast Asian soccer collide with COVID

LONDON — After years of discussion, efforts to privatize Malaysia’s soccer teams finally appeared set to make meaningful strides in 2020. Then came a global pandemic that has made the process much more difficult in the short term — but also, many argue, more necessary in the long term.

State-backed or company-owned sports teams are far from a rarity in Asia — Japanese and South Korean pro baseball teams are a classic example of the corporate ownership model. But in soccer-loving Malaysia, where all but one team belongs to a state government, detaching clubs from political influence is seen as a perquisite for creating professional, commercially minded outfits similar to those in the West.

That process of detachment has become no less of a priority for the Football Association of Malaysia as the country grapples with the pandemic.

“This exercise is to unchain local football from…