THE call for patience was no doubt delivered with the best of intentions. But Ian Maxwell has been around the game here long enough to know that trait is often in short supply on these shores.
At least the Scottish FA chief executive has laid out a timescale for supporters to work to. Once we get the first three months of VAR out the road, it should all be just hunky-dory.
That is the period that Maxwell has warned will be 'horrendous' as the technology is rolled out across the Premiership. It is here, and it is here to stay.
Initially set to be introduced after the World Cup break and when the schedule resumes in December, the process has now been shunted forward and the cameras will go live next week as Scottish football follows in the footsteps of so many of its peers across the continent.
Like most issues here, the camps in favour of or against VAR are largely partisan. Some are all for it and see it as a step in the right direction, while others are hugely sceptical of the idea and reckon it will be more hassle than it is worth.
In all likelihood, the truth will rest somewhere in the grey area in the middle. It usually does. But seeing that perspective is often tricky for fans who only view life through the prism of their club and the colour of their scarf.
The pros and cons of VAR have been debated and discussed for long enough and the only way to definitively discover if it is any use here or not is to press the on button, draw the lines on the screen and sit the officials down in their technology nerve centre while the action unfolds across the country.
“They’re going through the testing process," Maxwell said this week. "They’d done pretty much all the stadiums and they’re testing the connectivity and the software, not necessarily the match officials.
"It’s about whether the guys in the VAR centre can speak to the referee and everything works. That seems to have been going ok. We’ll see.
"We need to do it right. Due to the profile and because of the interest it’s going to get we need to be as ready as everyone can be.
"Now everyone I speak to at UEFA tells me that the first three months are going to be horrendous.”
Such a statement is unlikely to win over the doubters. And even those who are supportive of the move will surely have winced and had reason to think 'what if?' now that the game is bracing itself for a teething process that will be anything but straightforward.
Scottish football had to move with the game as a whole or risk being left behind. But the timing of the VAR implementation is also one of the biggest issues with it right now and bringing forward the start date will only increase the expectation amongst some that it will be the silver bullet to solve all the refereeing ills in this country.
That, of course, is never going to be the case. The variety of camera angles and the array of lines on the screen should assist our officials but it will not make them flawless and anyone who expects all the controversy and conjecture to vanish overnight clearly doesn't know Scottish football or hasn't been paying attention to other leagues and competitions that have been using VAR for some time now.
Players will still argue with the whistler and protest their innocence or express their feelings of injustice post-match. Fans will still claim there is a bias towards the Old Firm or across the derby divide and the tiresome old arguments will become even more banal.
Within weeks, we will hear managers claim that they have been unfairly treated because a decision made against them thanks to VAR wouldn't have been given earlier in the campaign. In that regard, they have got a point.
Introducing the system a couple of months into the campaign is a nonsense and makes a mockery of the competition. So much for sporting integrity.
The fact that it is the same for all teams can be used as an argument to claim it is all fair and equal. But managers will be quite right to point to the inconsistency in decisions over the coming weeks now that our referees have some extra eyes on the action.
It is not right that calls that would have been overturned in September - be it goals, offsides or cards - are now reversed in October. Moving the goalposts after a round of fixtures will skew the competition and only give the critics of VAR a reason to shout louder.
“Patience is probably a good word to use," Maxwell said. "There’s an understanding piece as well, just making sure that fans, managers, players, pundits, broadcast, media know when it’s used and why it’s used.
“You sit and watch a game and it’s a throw-in and people say VAR will tell that’s the wrong way but it doesn’t get involved in those things.
"We’ve spoken to managers and will continue to do that to educate everyone as much as we can. The biggest thing in that will be using it and getting used to it and the way it works.
"We need it, we want it, the clubs want it and it will solve a lot of the problems. You will always have the one or two contentious decisions – but this should it fix that.”
Overall, VAR should be good for Scottish football and the standard of officiating - one which is so often rightly derided - must continue to improve rather than regress now that a helping hand has arrived.
If more correct calls are made more of the time and the blatant mistakes are reduced in number, that can only be beneficial for those on the park and in the stands.
The timing is not fair but the moment has come. Now we just have to wait and see how horrendous it is going to be.
