By Pamela Barbaglia and Adam Jourdan LONDON/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - It was over lunch at his villa outside Milan with soccer "super-agent" Jorge Mendes that Italian tycoon Silvio Berlusconi realised an unpleasant truth: his storied club, AC Milan, needed cash, and plenty of it. Mendes, a source familiar with the matter said, was discussing the potential sale of Colombian star James Rodriguez from Real Madrid for 85 million euros ($95 million)- cash that loss-making, debt-burdened AC Milan simply did not have. Weeks later, Berlusconi became the latest European club owner to sell out to Chinese buyers, in a shopping spree that has caught up clubs from England's Aston Villa to France's OGC Nice and adds up to around $3 billion since December alone. More...