# Which failures should stop the purchase before weighting begins?


**Use Pass, Hold and Fail—not a compensating numerical average.**

- **Pass:** the requirement is demonstrated or documented to the responsible approver’s satisfaction.
- **Hold:** permission, evidence or a remediable issue remains unresolved. Do not sign or deploy the affected workflow.
- **Fail:** the proposed scope cannot meet a non-negotiable requirement. Reject that scope unless it is formally changed and retested.

| Gate | Recommended pass condition | Hold or fail examples | Sign-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evaluation and intended-use rights | The governing documents permit the trial and required operational workflows, including relevant users and entities | Benchmark permission unresolved; external evaluator unauthorised; required modelling expressly prohibited | Legal/procurement |
| Essential evidence | Every predeclared must-have competition, season, match type and evidence type is available at the required standard | Priority full matches missing; required historical season unavailable; data arrives after the decision deadline | Scouting lead |
| Critical correctness | No unresolved error in the sample that could materially change the recruitment action | Wrong-player merge; evidence attributed to another player; fabricated source accepted as genuine | Analytics and scouting |
| Confidentiality and security | Approved controls protect shortlists, reports, credentials and permitted player information | Unapproved onward sharing; unsuitable access controls; trial uploads routed to an unapproved processor | IT/privacy owner |
| Delivery feasibility | Named implementation owner, dependencies, staff capacity and an achievable operational date | No available integration capacity; critical connector remains a roadmap promise | Operational sponsor |
| Commercial and professional integrity | Complete scope, accountable delivery party and disclosed relevant conflicts | Unresolved agent relationship; unclear ownership of commissioned reports; materially incomplete quote | Procurement/sporting director |

For regional scouting, require written disclosure of agent relationships, commissions, other relevant assignments and subcontracting. For an internal build, apply the same gates to its source licences, engineering capacity and maintenance owner.

A critical-error gate means **zero unresolved critical errors in the tested sample**, not a claim that the supplier has a zero-error population.