Gheorghe Butoiu

Gheorghe Butoiu (born 7 November 1968) is a Romanian former football player and manager.

Club career Butoiu was born on 7 November 1968 in Câmpulung Muscel and began playing junior-level football when he was aged 12 at local club ARO Muscelul Câmpulung. In 1983, at age 16 he started to play for the team's senior squad in Divizia C. At Standard he was teammates with compatriot Mircea Rednic, but he spent only half a year with the club, being used by head coach Robert Waseige in 13 games, scoring two victory goals against Cercle Brugge and Mechelen. Butoiu returned to Romania, signing with Rapid București where he worked with coaches Mircea Rădulescu, Ion Dumitru, Nicolae Manea and Mircea Lucescu. After his Rapid spell ended, Butoiu went to play again for a short while at Farul where he was wanted by coach Ioan Andone.

Coaching career Butoiu started coaching at Farul Constanța's youth center, managing in 2008 to win the national junior championship for the first time after 45 years with the help of players such as Denis Alibec, Cosmin Matei and Kehinde Fatai. Shortly after that performance, he started coaching seniors, first, CS Eforie in Liga III. He started the year 2010 as head coach of Farul's satellite team in Liga III. However, after only five rounds in the second half of the season, Ștefan Stoica was dismissed after obtaining only four points and Butoiu had to return to coach the first team alongside technical director Dennis Șerban. For the following season, The Sailors named Ioan Sdrobiș as head coach, but Butoiu remained in the coaching staff as an assistant until January 2011 when Sdrobiș left the club and Butoiu became again head coach for a few months. In 2012 he led Eolica Dobrogea in Liga III together with Mihai Guliu and at the beginning of 2013 they went in Liga II to coach Săgeata Năvodari which they helped gain promotion in Liga I for the first time in history. In the following season he remained in Săgeata's technical staff as an assistant of Tibor Selymes. Afterwards Butoiu continued to work in Săgeata's new coaching staff led by Cătălin Anghel, but the team was relegated back to the second league by the end of the season. In November 2014 after Anghel left the team, Butoiu led the team again for a short while as head coach.