When Silviu Butnaru moved to Canada in 2012, he was surprised by the lack of soccer infrastructure in this country. Over a decade later, the sport has come a long way, with the Canadian Premier League set to enter its seventh season in April, and a new sense of professionalism and domestic development that has never existed on the current scale.
After a playing career that took him from his native Romania to France, Germany and Ireland, Butnaru got his coaching badges in the latter nation before immigrating across the Atlantic Ocean. He spent several years coaching, and worked with Ontario Soccer as a Learning Facilitator, before joining York United in 2024 as the club’s Director of Scouting and Development.
His role changed earlier this year with the introduction of the York United Academy, where he is set to coach the team in their first foray into League1 Ontario, as well as serve as the Academy’s Technical Director.
He admitted in an interview with CanPL.ca that at first he was skeptical about initial conversations with the York owners, but the more they spoke the more he realized they were very serious about the project. The aim is to have youth teams fully set up, and their York United Way curriculum developed, by early next year.
“When we sat down and we discussed creating this economy, it was all about creating a professional environment from a very young age, six years old to 18 years old, because nobody else does it,” he explained. “Most of the clubs [in Canada] are amateur clubs, and they do it the best way they can, and some clubs actually do it very, very good. We want to set up an example for everybody, and we want to create that environment where everybody’s gonna feel welcome and also feel like they’re part of an amazing story.
“For us it’s really, really important to have quality over quantity, to give those families that come and bring the kids to play the game the opportunity to feel like they’re part of something amazing.”
Part of Butnaru’s deep passion for the sport comes from a time when it was ripped away from him. In 2022, shortly after leaving a training session he was leading in London, Ont., his world changed suddenly, and drastically.
Butnaru got in his car and began to drive home, but was feeling ill and developing a headache. One of the other coaches, Anthony Vercillo, spotted cars swerving to avoid Butnaru and called him, telling him to pull to the side of the road before calling an ambulance to the location.
Butnaru had two strokes, and woke up in the hospital two days later. He realized when he woke up he was paralyzed as a result, and he spent several months in hospital before he was strong enough to start rehab. A lot of his motivation came from his family — he is a single parent to two children who are now in their early 20s — and part of it came from a desire to get involved again with the sport he has been so passionate about his entire life.
In the months following his brain injury, Butnaru had to learn to walk and talk again. He learned, in one of the hardest ways possible, not to take things for granted. When people looked at him with doubt, he became even more determined — a resilience he says came from growing up in communist Romania, where his family had to queue for hours to get some bread and butter to survive.
“I improved a lot from where I was three years ago, and I feel like I’m independent in so many ways,” Butnaru said. “I can do all the things that I like, I still go on the field and I try to kick a ball, and I play a little bit, even though the speed is not there the same way like 20 years ago or 10 years ago, but it’s enough for me to give me happiness that I always received from the game.”
After discussing with his doctors, Butnaru formed a plan to work his way back into the game he loves.
“I really, really want to leave something behind me when I’m not going to be around anymore,” he said. “I’m not a negative person, I’m always trying to find good in the things that come to us.”
One of the avenues he found his way back into the sport was through the Canadian Para national team. Also known as 7-a-side football, cerebral palsy football is an adaptation of the sport for athletes with cerebral palsy, brain injuries, or other disorders that affect motor skills like running, kicking a ball, and the athlete’s coordination.
Former Canada international Drew Ferguson has passionately grown the Para program from the ground up for over 20 years, and the two connected with each other.
“Somehow God helped me come back from that, and with that opportunity I had the chance to meet a couple of individuals that work with the Paralympic program in Canada Soccer,” Butnaru said. “Drew Ferguson, who is a fantastic human being and a great coach, gave me the opportunity in the beginning, [he] invited me to go and watch the team training.”
Ferguson told Butnaru that when he felt ready to start training with the team he was welcome to, and that perhaps it would help with his rehab. Slowly but surely he was ready to step onto the pitch and join the team.
Butnaru played five of six games for Canada at the 2023 Parapan Am Games in Santiago, Chile. Canada finished last, losing every game, but for him, the feeling of being back on the pitch and representing the country he now calls home was almost indescribable, adding that “it felt like God was really trying to show me there is always hoping in life, no matter what.”
In 2024 he was selected again for Canada, this time for the World Cup. Again he played in most of Canada’s matches, and again Les Rouges were eliminated from the competition early, but Butnaru looks back on the tournament as one of the best moments of his career.
One of the highlights so far was finishing off a standout play at the World Cup from Samuel Charron, Canada’s captain and one of the very best players in the world.
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“Getting to represent Canada at this age and at this level made me feel that I had an amazing achievement with the help of the coaches and the doctors. Dr Andrew Habib, who is a fantastic individual that works extremely, extremely hard with limited options, he kept all these players that we have in the team in good health and tries to have everybody ready for the games to represent the country. That, for me, was probably the highlight of the last 15 years. It’s an honour, and it’s an opportunity that I wish everybody who plays the game would have and feel one day — that feeling when you put on the team shirt.”
Putting the next generation of young players one step closer to representing Canada internationally is a big part of the mission at York United as well. The club’s young superstar, 16-year-old forward Shola Jimoh, has already spent some time with Jesse Marsch and the senior national team, and his quick rise is a blueprint that the club wants to build on as they look to bring in more young talent.
“He’s a starter in the under-17 national team, he’s a starter in our CPL team, his life changed entirely,” Butnaru said of Jimoh. “He’s one of the best young players in the country and when you look at this, and you look at the opportunities offered to him in the last 12 months by our club and our owners, I feel like this is where every young player out there should aim to be, because it’s a dream coming true.”
It’s players like Jimoh that could be the Canadian stars of tomorrow, and the Canadian Premier League was created with the goal of finding players like that and giving them an opportunity to play professionally at home — and in some cases, play professionally at all. He also made sure to mention 2008-born Joshua Lopez, who has been training with the first team and signed a CPL development contract with the club last year.
With a mandate from League1 Ontario that most of the academy team’s roster has to be aged 20 or under, young players will get a chance to get meaningful minutes all year long. While the team wants to win as many matches as they can, Butnaru says the biggest measure of success is how many players they can move up to the first team.
“There’s another two or three players, the same calibre like Shola, and they will be on the news in the next six months,” he asserted.
Developing players is one of his greatest passions, and this new role allows him to make a meaningful difference in the sport — something he no longer takes for granted.
