Wellington Phoenix owner Terry Serepisos has been selected to become the New Zealand version of Donald Trump in the hit television series The Apprentice.

Serepisos, like Trump, has made his millions from the property market and is hugely popular in New Zealand for launching the Wellington Phoenix A-League team and has gained world-wide coverage when he paid a massive fee to attract the LA Galaxy and David Beckham to play his beloved Phoenix at Westpac Stadium in 2007.

Apart from one of the largest ever domestic crowds in New Zealand football as a result of the Beckham game, Serepisos made headlines for one of the biggest after parties in Wellington history when he had Beckham and the players from Phoenix and Galaxy mixing with some of the elite of Wellington’s social set.