> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.dailyferment.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The UK will curb non-competes. Football shows where the restraint goes next. - URL: https://www.dailyferment.com/uk-non-compete-ban-bosman-notice-periods/ - Published: 2026-10-11T04:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-11T04:00:00.000Z - Description: Andy Burnham called the UK's plan to curb non-competes a Bosman ruling for innovation. After Bosman, football contracts got longer. The fix only works if notice periods are capped too. - Author: Rana Bilal Zafar - Tags: Working Out Loud, Leadership, Business, Law, #reframe On 9 October Andy Burnham told the Innovation Nation Summit in Manchester that the government will legislate on non-compete clauses. "I can confirm that we will legislate to make sure that non-compete clauses will no longer be a barrier to hiring for our most promising startups and scaling firms", he said, according to Tech.eu, and he compared it to the "Bosman ruling for the innovation sector". Startups including ElevenLabs and Synthesia had campaigned for it. Dom Hallas of the Startup Coalition put the case in one line: "Because talent matters and mobile talent means startups can build." The detail isn't settled. Gibson Dunn's note says the government hasn't committed to an outright ban. On the table are the three-month cap proposed in 2023, a salary threshold, paying people during the restriction, or a ban aimed at startups and scale-ups. The government also said it will "look at wider restrictive practices, starting with notice periods". Details are expected in the coming weeks, reportedly with the 28 October Budget. Burnham picked the analogy, so I want to take it seriously. What actually happened after Bosman? ## My first reaction was that this is simply good for startups A senior engineer who can't join a competitor for twelve months is an engineer a startup can't hire. Remove the clause, the engineer moves, the startup builds. That's the argument, and it's mostly right. Then I went and read what Bosman did to football contracts. ## The cross: after Bosman, contracts got longer The European Court of Justice decided Case C-415/93 on 15 December 1995\. Before it, a club could demand a transfer fee for a player even after his contract had ended. After it, a player out of contract could move to another club in the EU for free. Clubs didn't stop wanting fees. They changed where the fee came from. In a 2004 paper, Eberhard Feess, Bernd Frick and Gerd Muehlheusser looked at German Bundesliga contracts from 1994 to 2001\. Average contract length rose from 2.43 years to 2.91 years after the ruling. The ruling, they note, "did not restrict the transfer fees for players with valid contracts." So clubs kept players under contract longer, and the remaining years became the price. Each extra year left on a contract raised the transfer fee by 3.2%, and the effect was stronger after Bosman. The restraint after the contract was banned. The restraint inside the contract grew to replace it. ## What that suggests for the UK The employment version of "years left on the contract" is the notice period. A non-compete stops you working for a rival after you leave. A six or twelve month notice period, with garden leave, stops you working for a rival while you're technically still employed. For a startup trying to hire, the result looks much the same: the person can't start. UK lawyers saw this coming. When the last government proposed its three-month cap in 2023, HCR Law's advice to employers was direct: "To future proof the business, employers may look at increasing notice/garden leave periods". That's Bosman again, written for HR. So the line in the announcement I'd watch most closely is the one about notice periods. If the law curbs non-competes and leaves notice untouched, I'd expect long notice and garden leave to absorb much of the change, the way longer contracts absorbed Bosman. ![Bar chart: average Bundesliga contract length was 2.43 years before the Bosman ruling and 2.91 years after](https://storage.ghost.io/c/d7/b7/d7b77195-48c5-45ab-8688-51750879d1d6/content/images/2026/10/df41-contracts.png) After Bosman, clubs kept players under contract longer. Source: Feess, Frick and Muehlheusser (2004), Bundesliga 1994 to 2001. ## Where the comparison breaks Footballers sign fixed-term contracts. Most employees don't; they have open-ended contracts and a notice period. That makes a notice cap a cleaner fix than anything football had, because there's one number to regulate. There's also a real difference in cost. Garden leave is paid. A non-compete usually isn't, which is why paying people during the restriction is one of the options on the table. If employers have to pay to keep someone out of the market, they'll do it for fewer people. That's a better outcome than an unpaid clause, even if the hire is still delayed. I saw the same shape in insurance when the UK banned price walking: [the gap closed, but not from the side people expected](https://www.dailyferment.com/ai-agents-bank-deposits-loyalty-penalty/). Regulate one lever and the money, or here the restraint, moves to the next lever along. ## What I'm confident of, and what I'm not What Burnham announced, and what is still open, is established from Tech.eu and Gibson Dunn. The Bundesliga numbers are established from the Feess, Frick and Muehlheusser paper, and they cover one league in one period. That UK employers will lengthen notice periods if they lose non-competes is my inference, supported by the advice law firms were already giving in 2023\. How much that blunts the reform is a guess. The claim, in one sentence: when you ban the restraint that starts after a job ends, the restraint moves inside the job, so a non-compete curb only frees people if notice periods are capped in the same law. ## Sources John Reynolds, "UK to ban non-compete clauses, marking boon for startup and scaleups", Tech.eu, 9 October 2026\. [https://tech.eu/2026/10/09/uk-o-ban-non-compete-clauses-marking-boon-for-startup-and-scaleups](https://tech.eu/2026/10/09/uk-o-ban-non-compete-clauses-marking-boon-for-startup-and-scaleups?ref=dailyferment.com) Gibson Dunn, "UK Announces Crackdown on Non-Compete Clauses and Long Notice Periods", October 2026\. [https://www.gibsondunn.com/uk-announces-crackdown-on-non-compete-clauses-and-long-notice-periods/](https://www.gibsondunn.com/uk-announces-crackdown-on-non-compete-clauses-and-long-notice-periods/?ref=dailyferment.com) Court of Justice of the European Union, Case C-415/93, Union royale belge des sociétés de football association and others v Bosman, 15 December 1995\. [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:61993CJ0415](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:61993CJ0415&ref=dailyferment.com) Eberhard Feess, Bernd Frick and Gerd Muehlheusser, "Legal Restrictions on Buyout Fees: Theory and Evidence from German Soccer", IZA Discussion Paper 1180 / University of Bern Discussion Paper 04-11, June 2004\. [https://boris.unibe.ch/145644/1/dp0411.pdf](https://boris.unibe.ch/145644/1/dp0411.pdf?ref=dailyferment.com) HCR Law, "Farewell to non-compete restrictions?", 25 May 2023\. [https://www.hcrlaw.com/news-and-insights/farewell-to-non-compete-restrictions/](https://www.hcrlaw.com/news-and-insights/farewell-to-non-compete-restrictions/?ref=dailyferment.com)